
Class 

Book 



Thoughts on Religion 



BY THE LATE 



GEORGE JOHN ROMANES 

M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. 



EDITED BY 



CHARLES GORE, M.A. 



CANON OF WESTMINSTER 



V 



CHICAGO 

THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1895 






174 






CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Editor's Preface 5 



PART I. 

The Influence of Science upon Religion. 

Essay I 37 

Essay II 5 6 

PART II. 

Notes for a Work on a Candid Examination 
of Religion. 

Introductory Note by the Editor . . . . 91 

§ 1. Introductory 98 

§ 2. Definition of Terms and Purpose of this 

Treatise 104 

§ 3. Causality 116 

§ 4. Faith 131 

§ 5. Faith in Christianity 154 

Concluding Note by the Editor . . . . 184 

A 2 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 



The late Mr. George John Romanes — the author 
within the last few years of Darwin and After 
Darwin, and of the Examination of Weismannism 
— occupied a distinguished place in contemporary 
biology. But his mind was also continuously and 
increasingly active on the problems of meta- 
physics and theology. And at his death in the 
early summer of this year (1894), he left among 
his papers some notes, made mostly in the 
previous winter, for a work which he was in- 
tending to write on the fundamental questions 
of religion. He had desired that these notes 
should be given to me and that I should do with 
them as I thought best. His literary executors 
accordingly handed them over to me, in company 
with some unpublished essays, two of which form 
the first part of the present volume. 

After reading the notes myself, and obtaining 
the judgement of others in whom I feel confidence 
upon them, I have no hesitation either in publishing 



6 Thoughts on Religion 

by far the greater part of them, or in publishing 
them with the author's name in spite of the fact that 
the book as originally projected was to have been 
anonymous. From the few words which George 
Romanes said to me on the subject, I have no doubt 
that he realized that the notes if published after 
his death must be published with his name. 

I have said that after reading these notes 
I feel no doubt that they ought to be published. 
They claim it both by their intrinsic value and 
by the light they throw on the religious thought 
of a scientific man who was not only remarkably 
able and clear-headed, but also many-sided, as 
few men are, in his capacities, and singularly 
candid and open-hearted. To all these qualities 
the notes which are now offered to the public 
will bear unmistakable witness. 

With more hesitation it has been decided to 
print also the unpublished essays already referred 
to. These, as representing an earlier stage of 
thought than is represented in the notes, naturally 
appear first. 

Both Essays and Notes however represent the 
same tendency of a mind from a position of unbelief 
in the Christian Revelation toward one of belief in it. 
They represent, I say, a tendency of one ' seeking 
after God if haply he might feel after Him and 



Editor s Preface 7 

find Him/ and not a position of settled orthodoxy. 
Even the Notes contain in fact many things which 
could not come from a settled believer. This 
being so it is natural that I should say a word 
as to the way in which I have understood my 
function as an editor. I have decided the question 
of publishing each Note solely by the consideration 
whether or no it was sufficiently finished to be 
intelligible. I have rigidly excluded any question 
of my own agreement or disagreement with it. 
In the case of one Note in particular, I doubt 
whether I should have published it, had it not been 
that my decided disagreement with its contents 
made me fear that I might be prejudiced in 
withholding it. 

The Notes, with the papers which precede them, 
will, I think, be better understood if I give some 
preliminary account of their antecedents, that is 
of Romanes' previous publications on the subject 
of religion. 

In 1873 an essay of George Romanes gained the 
Burney Prize at Cambridge, the subject being 
Christian Prayer considered in relation to the 
belief that the Almighty governs the world by 
general laws. This was published in 1874, with 
an appendix on The Physical Efficacy of Prayer. 
In this essay, written when he was twenty-five years 



8 Thoughts on Religion 

old, Romanes shows the characteristic qualities 
of his mind and style already developed. The 
sympathy with the scientific point of view is 
there, as might be expected perhaps in a Cam- 
bridge ' Scholar in Natural Science ' : the logical 
acumen and love of exact distinctions is there : 
there too the natural piety and spiritual appre- 
ciation of the nature of Christian prayer— a piety 
and appreciation which later intellectual habits of 
thought could never eradicate. The essay, as 
judged by the standard of prize compositions, is of 
remarkable ability, and strictly proceeds within 
the limits of the thesis. On the one side, for the 
purpose of the argument, the existence of a Per- 
sonal God is assumed 1 , and also the reality of the 
Christian Revelation which assures us that we have 
reason to expect real answers, even though con- 
ditionally and within restricted limits, to prayers for 
physical goods 2 . On the other side, there is taken 
for granted the belief that general laws pervade 
the observable domain of physical nature. Then 
the question is considered — how is the physical 
efficacy of prayer which the Christian accepts on 
the authority of revelation compatible with the 
scientifically known fact that God governs the 
world by general laws? The answer is mainly 

1 P- 7- 2 p. 173. 



Editor s Preface 9 

found in emphasizing the limited sphere within 
which scientific inquiry can be conducted and 
scientific knowledge can obtain. Special divine 
acts of response to prayer, even in the physical 
sphere, may occur — force may be even originated 
in response to prayer — and still not produce any 
phenomenon such as science must take cognizance 
of and regard as miraculous or contrary to the 
known order. 

On one occasion the Notes refer back to this 
essay 1 , and more frequently, as we shall have 
occasion to notice, they reproduce thoughts which 
had already been expressed in the earlier work but 
had been obscured or repudiated in the interval. 
I have no grounds for knowing whether in the main 
Romanes remained satisfied with the reasoning and 
conclusion of his earliest essay, granted the theistic 
hypothesis on which it rests. But this hypothesis 
itself, very shortly after publishing this essay, he 
was led to repudiate. In other words, his mind 
moved rapidly and sharply into a position of 
reasoned scepticism about the existence of God 
at all. The Burney Essay was published in 
1874. Already in 1876 at least he had written 
an anonymous work with a wholly sceptical con- 
clusion, entitled 'A Candid Examination of Theism' 
1 See p. no. 



io Thoughts on Religion 

by Physicus 1 . As the Notes were written with 
direct reference to this work, some detailed account 
of its argument seems necessary ; and this is to be 
found in the last chapter of the work itself, where 
the author summarizes his arguments and draws 
his conclusions. I venture therefore to reproduce 
this chapter at length 2 . 



'§ i. Our analysis is now at an end, and a very 
few words will here suffice to convey an epitomized 
recollection of the numerous facts and conclusions 
which we have found it necessary to contemplate. 
We first disposed of the conspicuously absurd 
supposition that the origin of things, or the mystery 
of existence [i. e. the fact that anything exists at 
all], admits of being explained by the theory of 
Theism in any further degree than by the theory 
of Atheism. Next it was shown that the argument 
" Our heart requires a God " is invalid, seeing that 
such a subjective necessity, even if made out, could 
not be sufficient to prove— or even to render 

1 Published in Triibner's English and Foreign Philosophical 
Library in 1878, but written c several years ago ' (preface). ' I have 
refrained from publishing it/ the author explains, l lest, after having 
done so, I should find that more mature thought had modified the 
conclusions which the author sets forth.' 

2 At times I have sought to make the argument of the chapter 
more intelligible by introducing references to earlier parts of the book 
or explanations in my own words. These latter I have inserted in 
square brackets. 



Editor s Preface n 

probable — an objective existence. And with regard 
to the further argument that the fact of our theistic 
aspirations points to God as to their explanatory 
cause, it became necessary to observe that the 
argument could only be admissible after the possi- 
bility of the operation of natural causes [in the 
production of our theistic aspirations] had been 
excluded. Similarly the argument from the sup- 
posed intuitive necessity of individual thought [i. e. 
the alleged fact that men find it impossible to rid 
themselves of the persuasion that God exists] was 
found to be untenable, first, because, even if the 
supposed necessity were a real one, it would only 
possess an individual applicability ; and second, 
that, as a matter of fact, it is extremely improbable 
that the supposed necessity is a real necessity even 
for the individual who asserts it, while it is abso- 
lutely certain that it is not such to the vast 
majority of the race. The argument from the 
general consent of mankind, being so obviously 
fallacious both as to facts and principles, was passed 
over without comment ; while the argument from 
a first cause was found to involve a logical suicide. 
Lastly, the argument that, as human volition is 
a cause in nature, therefore all causation is probably 
volitional in character, was shown to consist in 
a stretch of inference so outrageous that the argu- 
ment had to be pronounced worthless. 

' § 2. Proceeding next to examine the less super- 
ficial arguments in favour of Theism, it was first 
shown that the syllogism, All known minds are 
caused by an unknown mind ; our mind is a known 



12 Thoughts on Religion 

mind ; therefore our mind is caused by an unknown 
mind, — is a syllogism that is inadmissible for two 
reasons. In the first place, it does not account for 
mind (in the abstract) to refer it to a prior mind for 
its origin ; and therefore, although the hypothesis, 
if admitted, would be an explanation of known 
mind, it is useless as an argument for the existence 
of the unknown mind, the assumption of which 
forms the basis of that explanation. Again, in the 
next place, if it be said that mind is so far an 
entity sui generis that it must be either self-existing 
or caused by another mind, there is no assignable 
warrant for the assertion. And this is the second 
objection to the above syllogism ; for anything 
within the whole range of the possible may, for 
aught that we can tell, be competent to produce 
a self-conscious intelligence. Thus an objector to 
the above syllogism need not hold any theory 
of things at all ; but even as opposed to the definite 
theory of materialism, the above syllogism has 
not so valid an argumentative basis to stand upon. 
We know that what we call matter and force 
are to all appearance eternal, while we have no 
corresponding evidence of a mind that is even 
apparently eternal. Further, within experience 
mind is invariably associated with highly differ- 
entiated collocations of matter and distributions of 
force, and many facts go to prove, and none to nega- 
tive, the conclusion that the grade of intelligence 
invariably depends upon, or at least is associated 
with, a corresponding grade of cerebral development. 
There is thus both a qualitative and a quantitative 



Editor s Preface 13 

relation between intelligence and cerebral organ- 
isation. And if it is said that matter and motion 
cannot produce consciousness because it is incon- 
ceivable that they should, we have seen at some 
length that this is no conclusive consideration as 
applied to a subject of a confessedly transcendental 
nature, and that in the present case it is particularly 
inconclusive, because, as it is speculatively certain 
that the substance of mind must be unknowable, 
it seems a priori probable that, whatever is the 
cause of the unknowable reality, this cause should 
be more difficult to render into thought in that 
relation than would some other hypothetical 
substance which is imagined as more akin to mind. 
And if it is said that the more conceivable cause 
is the more probable cause, we have seen that it 
is in this case impossible to estimate the validity 
of the remark. Lastly, the statement that the 
cause must contain actually all that its effects 
can contain, was seen to be inadmissible in logic 
and contradicted by everyday experience ; while 
the argument from the supposed freedom of the will 
and the existence of the moral sense was negatived 
both deductively by the theory of evolution, and 
inductively by the doctrine of utilitarianism. 5 
The theory of the freedom of the will is indeed 
at this stage of thought utterly untenable 1 ; the 
evidence is overwhelming that the moral sense is 
the result of a purely natural evolution 2 , and this 
result, arrived at on general grounds, is confirmed 
with irresistible force by the account of our human 
1 p. 24. 2 p. 28. 



14 Thoughts on Religion 

conscience which is supplied by the theory of 
utilitarianism, a theory based on the widest and 
most unexceptionable of inductions \ c On the 
whole, then, with regard to the argument from 
the existence of the human mind, we were com- 
pelled to decide that it is destitute of any 
assignable weight, there being nothing more to 
lead to the conclusion that our mind has been 
caused by another mind, than to the conclusion 
that it has been caused by anything else what- 
soever. 

6 § 3- With regard to the argument from Design, 
it was observed that Mill's presentation of it [in 
his Essay on Theisni\ is merely a resuscitation of 
the argument as presented by Paley, Bell, and 
Chalmers. And indeed we saw that the first- 
named writer treated this whole subject with 
a feebleness and inaccuracy very surprising in 
him ; for while he has failed to assign anything 
like due weight to the inductive evidence of or- 
ganic evolution, he did not hesitate to rush into 
a supernatural explanation of biological phenomena. 
Moreover, he has failed signally in his analysis 
of the Design argument, seeing that, in common 
with all previous writers, he failed to observe that 
it is utterly impossible for us to know the relations 
in which the supposed Designer stands to the 
Designed, — much less to argue from the fact that 
the Supreme Mind, even supposing it to exist, 
caused the observable products by any particular 
intellectual process. In other words, all advocates 

1 p. 28. 



Editor s Preface 15 

of the Design argument have failed to perceive 
that, even if we grant nature to be due to a creating 
Mind, still we have no shadow of a right to con- 
clude that this Mind can only have exerted its 
creative power by means of such and such cogi- 
tative operations. How absurd, therefore, must 
it be to raise the supposed evidence of such 
cogitative operations into evidences of the existence 
of a creating Mind ! If a theist retorts that it is, 
after all, of very little importance whether or not 
we are able to divine the methods of creation, so 
long as the facts are there to attest that, in some 
way or other, the observable phenomena of nature 
must be due to Intelligence of some kind as their 
ultimate cause, then I am the first to endorse this 
remark. It has always appeared to me one of the 
most unaccountable things in the history of specu- 
lation that so many competent writers can have 
insisted upon Design as an argument for Theism, 
when they must all have known perfectly well 
that they have no means of ascertaining the 
subjective psychology of that Supreme Mind 
whose existence the argument is adduced to 
demonstrate. The truth is, that the argument 
from teleology must, and can only, rest upon the 
observable facts of nature, without reference to 
the intellectual processes by which these facts 
may be supposed to have been accomplished. But, 
looking to the " present state of our knowledge/' 
this is merely to change the teleological argument 
in its gross Paleyian form, into the argument from 
the ubiquitous operation of general laws/ 



16 Thoughts on Religion 

4 § 4.' This argument was thus 1 stated in contrast 
with the argument from design. • The argument 
from design says, there must be a God, because 
such and such an organic structure must have been 
due to such and such an intellectual process. The 
argument from general laws says, There must be 
a God, because such and such an organic structure 
must in some way or other have been ultimately 
due to intelligence.' Every structure exhibits with 
more or less of complexity the principle of order ; 
it is related to all other things in a universal order. 
This universality of order renders irrational the 
hypothesis of chance in accounting for the universe. 
< Let us think of the supreme causality as we 
may, the fact remains that from it there emanates 
a directive influence of uninterrupted consistency, 
on a scale of stupendous magnitude and exact pre- 
cision worthy of our highest conceptions of deity V 
The argument was developed in the words of Pro- 
fessor Baden Powell. ' That which requires reason 
and thought to understand must be itself thought 
and reason. That which mind alone can investi- 
gate or express must be itself mind. And if the 
highest conception attained is but partial, then 
the mind and reason studied is greater than the 
mind and reason of the student. If the more it 
is studied the more vast and complex is the ne- 
cessary connection in reason disclosed, then the 
more evident is the vast extent and compass of the 
reason thus partially manifested and its reality as 
existing in the immutably connected order of objects 

1 P. 45- 2 P- 47- 



WORKS BY REV. CHARLES GORE, M.A. 

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RECENT WORKS BY G. /. ROMANES, M.A. 

DARWIN, AND AFTER DARWIN : An Exposition of the 
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Questions. 
Part i. The Darwinian Theory. Cloth, $2.00. 
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THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 



©jforb 

HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 



Editor s Preface 17 

examined, independently of the mind of the investi- 
gator. 5 This argument from the universal Kosmos 
has the advantage of being wholly independent of 
the method by which things came to be what they 
are. It is unaffected by the acceptance of evolution. 
Till quite recently it seemed irrefutable 1 . 

' But nevertheless we are constrained to acknow- 
ledge that its apparent power dwindles to nothing in 
view of the indisputable fact that, if force and matter 
have been eternal, all and every natural law must 
have resulted by way of necessary consequence. . . . 
It does not admit of one moment's questioning that 
it is as certainly true that all the exquisite beauty 
and melodious harmony of nature follows necessarily 
as inevitably from the persistence of force and the 
primary qualities of matter as it is certainly true that 
force is persistent or that matter is extended or im- 
penetrable 2 . ... It will be remembered that I dwelt 
at considerable length and with much earnestness 
upon this truth, not only because of its enormous 
importance in its bearing upon our subject, but also 
because no one has hitherto considered it in that 
relation. 5 It was also pointed out that the coherence 
and correspondence of the macrocosm of the universe 
ith the microcosm of the human mind can be ac- 
ounted for by the fact that the human mind is only 
aeof the products of general evolution, its subjective 
Nations necessarily reflecting those external relations 
f which they themselves are the product 3 . 
' § 5. The next step, however, was to mitigate the 
verity of the conclusion that was liable to be formed 

1 p. 5°- 2 P- 63. 3 pp. 5 8 ff - 

B 



18 Thoughts on Religion 

upon the utter and hopeless collapse of all the pos- 
sible arguments in favour of Theism. Having fully 
demonstrated that there is no shadow of a positive 
argument in support of the theistic theory, there 
arose the danger that some persons might erroneously 
conclude that for this reason the theistic theory must 
be untrue. It therefore became necessary to point 
out, that although, as far as we can see, nature does 
not require an Intelligent Cause to account for any 
of her phenomena, yet it is possible that, if we could 
see farther, we should see that nature could not be 
what she is unless she had owed her existence to an 
Intelligent Cause. Or, in other words, the proba- 
bility there is that an Intelligent Cause is unneces- 
sary to explain any of the phenomena of nature, 
is only equal to the probability there is that the 
doctrine of the persistence of force is everywhere 
and eternally true. 

' As a final step in our analysis, therefore, we alto- 
gether quitted the region of experience, and ignoring 
even the very foundations of science, and so all the 
most certain of relative truths, we carried the discus- 
sion into the transcendental region of purely formal 
considerations. And here we laid down the canon, 
"that the value of any probability, in its last analysis, is 
determined by the number, the importance, and the 
definiteness of the relations known, as compared with 
those of the relations unknown ;" and, consequently, 
that in cases where the unknown relations are more 
numerous, more important, or more indefinite than are 
the known relations, the value of our inference varies 
inversely as the difference in these respects between 



Editor s Preface 19 

the relations compared. From which canon it 
followed, that as the problem of Theism is the most 
ultimate of all problems, and so contains in its un- 
known relations all that is to man unknown and 
unknowable, these relations must be pronounced 
the most indefinite of all relations that it is possible 
for man to contemplate ; and, consequently, that 
although we have here the entire range of experience 
from which to argue, we are unable to estimate the 
real value of any argument whatsoever. The un- 
known relations in our attempted induction being 
wholly indefinite, both in respect of their number 
and importance, as compared with the known 
relations, it is impossible for us to determine any 
definite probability either for or against the being of 
a God. Therefore, although it is true that, so far 
as human science can penetrate or human thought 
infer, we can perceive no evidence of God, yet we 
have no right on this account to conclude that there 
is no God. The probability, therefore, that nature 
is devoid of Deity, while it is of the strongest kind 
if regarded scientifically — amounting, in fact, to 
a scientific demonstration, — is nevertheless wholly 
worthless if regarded logically. Although it is 
as true as is the fundamental basis of all science 
and of all experience that, if there is a God, His 
existence, considered as a cause of the universe, is 
superfluous, it may nevertheless be true that, if there 
had never been a God, the universe could never have 
existed. 

1 Hence these formal considerations proved con- 
clusively that, no matter how great the probability 

B 2 



20 Thoughts on Religion 

of Atheism might appear to be in a relative sense, 
we have no means of estimating such probability 
in an absolute sense. From which position there 
emerged the possibility of another argument in 
favour of Theism — or rather let us say, of a re- 
appearance of the teleological argument in another 
form. For it may be said, seeing that these formal 
considerations exclude legitimate reasoning either 
for or against Deity in an absolute sense, while 
they do not exclude such reasoning in a relative 
sense, if there yet remain any theistic deductions 
which may properly be drawn from experience, 
these may now be adduced to balance the atheistic 
deductions from the persistence of force. For 
although the latter deductions have clearly shown 
the existence of Deity to be superfluous in a 
scientific sense, the formal considerations in question 
have no less clearly opened up beyond the sphere 
of science a possible locus for the existence of 
Deity ; so that if there are any facts supplied by 
experience for which the atheistic deductions appear 
insufficient to account, we are still free to account 
for them in a relative sense by the hypothesis of 
Theism. And, it may be urged, we do find such 
an unexplained residuum in the correlation of 
general laws in the production of cosmic harmony. 
It signifies nothing, the argument may run, that 
we are unable to conceive the methods whereby 
the supposed Mind operates in producing cosmic 
harmony ; nor does it signify that its operation 
must now be relegated to a super-scientific province. 
What does signify is that, taking a general view 



Editor s Preface 21 

of nature, we find it impossible to conceive of the 
extent and variety of her harmonious processes as 
other than products of intelligent causation. Now 
this sublimated form of the teleological argument, 
it will be remembered, I denoted a metaphysical 
teleology, in order sharply to distinguish it from 
all previous forms of that argument, which, in 
contradistinction I denoted scientific teleologies. 
And the distinction, it will be remembered, con- 
sisted in this — that while all previous forms of 
teleology, by resting on a basis which was not 
beyond the possible reach of science, laid themselves 
open to the possibility of scientific refutation, the 
metaphysical system of teleology, by resting on 
a basis which is clearly beyond the possible reach 
of science, can never be susceptible of scientific 
refutation. And that this metaphysical system of 
teleology does rest on such a basis is indisputable ; 
for while it accepts the most ultimate truths of 
which science can ever be cognizant — viz. the 
persistence of force and the consequently necessary 
genesis of natural law, — it nevertheless maintains 
that the necessity of regarding Mind as the ultimate 
cause of things is not on this account removed ; 
and, therefore, that if science now requires the 
operation of a Supreme Mind to be posited in 
a super-scientific sphere, then in a super-scientific 
sphere it ought to be posited. No doubt this 
hypothesis at first sight seems gratuitous, seeing 
that, so far as science can penetrate, there is no 
need of any such hypothesis at all — cosmic harmony 
resulting as a physically necessary consequence 



22 



Thoughts on Religion 



from the combined action of natural laws, which in 
turn result as a physically necessary consequence 
of the persistence of force and the primary qualities 
of matter. But although it is thus indisputably 
true that metaphysical teleology is wholly gratuitous 
if considered scientifically, it may not be true that 
it is wholly gratuitous if considered psychologically. 
In other words, if it is more conceivable that Mind 
should be the ultimate cause of cosmic harmony 
than that the persistence of force should be so, then 
it is not irrational to accept the more conceivable 
hypothesis in preference to the less conceivable 
one, provided that the choice is made with the 
diffidence which is required by the considerations 
adduced in Chapter V [especially the Canon of 
probability laid down in the second paragraph of this 
section, § 5]. 

' 1 conclude, therefore, that the hypothesis of 
metaphysical teleology, although in a physical 
sense gratuitous, may be in a psychological sense 
legitimate. But as against the fundamental position 
on which alone this argument can rest — viz. the 
position that the fundamental postulate of Atheism 
is more inconceivable than is the fundamental 
postulate of Theism — we have seen two important 
objections to lie. 

'For, in the first place, the sense in which the 
word " inconceivable " is here used is that of the 
impossibility of framing realizable relations in the 
thought ; not that of the impossibility of framing 
abstract relations in thought. In the same sense, 
though in a lower degree, it is true that the 



Editor s Preface 23 

complexity of the human organization and its 
functions is inconceivable ; but in this sense the 
word " inconceivable" has much less weight in an 
argument than it has in its true sense. And, without 
waiting again to dispute (as w T e did in the case of 
the speculative standing of Materialism) how far 
even the genuine test of inconceivability ought to 
be allowed to make against an inference which 
there is a body of scientific evidence to substantiate, 
we went on to the second objection against this 
fundamental position of metaphysical teleology. 
This objection, it will be remembered, was, that it 
is as impossible to conceive of cosmic harmony as 
an effect of Mind [i. e. Mind being what we know it 
in experience to be], as it is to conceive of it as an 
effect of mindless evolution. The argument from 
inconceivability, therefore, admits of being turned 
with quite as terrible an effect on Theism, as it can 
possibly be made to exert on Atheism. 

c Hence this more refined form of teleology which 
we are considering, and which we saw to be the 
last of the possible arguments in favour of Theism, 
is met on its own ground by a very crushing 
opposition : by its metaphysical character it has 
escaped the opposition of physical science, only 
to encounter a new opposition in the region of 
pure psychology to which it fled. As a conclu- 
sion to our whole inquiry, therefore, it devolved 
on us to determine the relative magnitudes of 
these opposing forces. And in doing this we 
first observed that, if the supporters of meta- 
physical teleology objected a priori to the method 



24 Thoughts on Religion 

whereby the genesis of natural law was deduced 
from the datum of the persistence of force, in 
that this method involved an unrestricted use 
of illegitimate symbolic conceptions ; then it is 
no less open to an atheist to object a priori to 
the method whereby a directing Mind was inferred 
from the datum of cosmic harmony, in that this 
method involved the postulation of an unknowable 
cause, — and this of a character which the whole 
history of human thought has proved the human 
mind to exhibit an overweening tendency to 
postulate as the cause of natural phenomena. 
On these grounds, therefore, I concluded that, 
so far as their respective standing a priori is 
concerned, both theories may be regarded as 
about equally suspicious. And similarly with regard 
to their standing a posteriori ; for as both theories 
require to embody at least one infinite term, they 
must each alike be pronounced absolutely incon- 
ceivable. But, finally, if the question were put 
to me which of the two theories I regarded as 
the more rational, I observed that this is a question 
which no one man can answer for another. For as 
the test of absolute inconceivability is equally 
destructive of both theories, if a man wishes to 
choose between them, his choice can only be 
determined by what I have designated relative 
inconceivability — i.e. in accordance with the verdict 
given by his individual sense of probability as 
determined by his previous habit of thought. And 
forasmuch as the test of relative inconceivability 
may be held in this matter legitimately to vary 



Editor s Preface 25 

with the character of the mind which applies it, 
the strictly rational probability of the question 
to which it is applied varies in like manner. Or 
otherwise presented, the only alternative for any 
man in this matter is either to discipline himself 
into an attitude of pure scepticism, and thus to 
refuse in thought to entertain either a probability 
or an improbability concerning the existence of 
a God ; or else to incline in thought towards an 
affirmation or a negation of God, according as his 
previous habits of thought have rendered such 
an inclination more facile in the one direction than 
in the other. And although, under such circum- 
stances, I should consider that man the more 
rational who carefully suspended his judgement, 
I conclude that if this course is departed from, 
neither the metaphysical teleologist nor the scien- 
tific atheist has any perceptible advantage over 
the other in respect of rationality. For as the 
formal conditions of a metaphysical teleology are 
undoubtedly present on the one hand, and the 
formal conditions of a speculative atheism are as 
undoubtedly present on the other, there is thus 
in both cases a logical vacuum supplied wherein 
the pendulum of thought is free to swing in which- 
ever direction it may be made to swing by the 
momentum of preconceived ideas. 

' § 6. Such is the outcome of our investigation, 
and considering the abstract nature of the subject, 
the immense divergence of opinion which at 
the present time is manifested with regard to it, 
as well as the confusing amount of good, bad 



26 Thoughts on Religion 

and indifferent literature on both sides of the 
controversy which is extant ; — considering these 
things, I do not think that the result of our inquiry 
can be justly complained of on the score of its 
lacking precision. At a time like the present, 
when traditional beliefs respecting Theism are 
so generally accepted, and so commonly concluded 
as a matter of course to have a large and valid 
basis of induction whereon to rest, I cannot but 
feel that a perusal of this short essay, by showing 
how very concise the scientific status of the subject 
really is, will do more to settle the minds of most 
readers as to the exact standing at the present 
time of all the probabilities of the question, than 
could a perusal of all the rest of the literature upon 
this subject. And, looking to the present condition 
of speculative philosophy, I regard it as of the 
utmost importance to have clearly shown that the 
advance of science has now entitled us to assert, 
without the least hesitation, that the hypothesis 
of Mind in nature is as certainly superfluous to 
account for any of the phenomena of nature, as 
the scientific doctrine of the persistence of force 
and the indestructibility of matter is certainly true. 
' On the other hand, if any one is inclined to 
complain that the logical aspect of the question 
has not proved itself so unequivocally definite as 
has the scientific, I must ask him to consider that, 
in any matter which does not admit of actual 
demonstration, some margin must of necessity be 
left for variations of individual opinion. And, if he 
bears this consideration in mind, I feel sure that 



Editor s Preface 27 

he cannot properly complain of my not having 
done my utmost in this case to define as sharply 
as possible the character and the limits of this 
margin. 

' § 7. And now, in conclusion, I feel it is desirable 
to state that any antecedent bias with regard to 
Theism which I individually possess is un- 
questionably on the side of traditional beliefs. It 
is therefore with the utmost sorrow that I find 
myself compelled to accept the conclusions here 
worked out ; and nothing would have induced me 
to publish them, save the strength of my conviction 
that it is the duty of every member of society 
to give his fellows the benefit of his labours for 
whatever they may be worth. Just as I am con- 
fident that truth must in the end be the most 
profitable for the race, so I am persuaded that 
every individual endeavour to attain it, provided 
only that such endeavour is unbiassed and sincere, 
ought without hesitation to be made the common 
property of all men, no matter in what direction 
the results of its promulgation may appear to tend. 
And so far as the ruination of individual happiness 
is concerned, no one can have a more lively per- 
ception than myself of the possibly disastrous 
tendency of my work. So far as I am individually 
concerned, the result of this analysis has been to 
show that, whether I regard the problem of Theism 
on the lower plane of strictly relative probability, 
or on the higher plane of purely formal consider- 
ations, it equally becomes my obvious duty to 
stifle all belief of the kind which I conceive to be 



28 Thoughts on Religion 

the noblest, and to discipline my intellect with 
regard to this matter into an attitude of the purest 
scepticism. And forasmuch as I am far from 
being able to agree with those who affirm that the 
twilight doctrine of the " new faith " is a desirable 
substitute for the waning splendour of li the old," 
I am not ashamed to confess that with this virtual 
negation of God the universe to me has lost its 
soul of loveliness ; and although from henceforth 
the precept to " work while it is day " will doubtless 
but gain an intensified force from the terribly 
intensified meaning of the words that "the night 
cometh when no man can work," yet when at times 
I think, as think at times I must, of the appalling 
contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed 
which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of 
existence as now I find it, — at such times I shall 
ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang 
of which my nature is susceptible. For whether 
it be due to my intelligence not being sufficiently 
advanced to meet the requirements of the age, 
or whether it be due to the memory of those 
sacred associations which to me at least were the 
sweetest that life has given, I cannot but feel that 
for me, and for others who think as I do, there 
is a dreadful truth in those words of Hamilton, — 
Philosophy having become a meditation, not 
merely of death, but of annihilation, the precept 
know thyself has become transformed into the 
terrific oracle to CEdipus — 

" Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art. 1 ' ' 



Editor's Preface 29 

This analysis will have been at least sufficient 
to give a clear idea of the general argument of the 
Candid Examination and of its melancholy con- 
clusions. What will most strike a somewhat 
critical reader is perhaps (1) the tone of certainty, 
and (2) the belief in the almost exclusive right of 
the scientific method in the court of reason. 

As evidence of (1) I would adduce the following 
brief quotations : — 

P. xi. ' Possible errors in reasoning apart, the 
rational position of Theism as here defined must 
remain without material modification as long as 
our intelligence remains human/ 

P. 24. ' I am quite unable to understand how 
any one at the present day, and with the most 
moderate powers of abstract thinking, can possibly 
bring himself to embrace the theory of Free-will. 5 

P. 64. ' Undoubtedly we have no alternative 
but to conclude that the hypothesis of mind in 
nature is now logically proved to be as certainly 
superfluous as the very basis of all science is 
certainly true. There can no longer be any more 
doubt that the existence of a God is wholly un- 
necessary to explain any of the phenomena of 
the universe, than there is doubt that if I leave go 
of my pen it will fall upon the table.' 

As evidence of (2) I would adduce from the 
preface — 

' To my mind, therefore, it is impossible to 



30 Thoughts on Religion 

resist the conclusion that, looking to this undoubted 
pre-eminence of the scientific methods as ways to 
truth, whether or not there is a God, the question 
as to his existence is both more morally and 
more reverently contemplated if we regard it 
purely as a problem for methodical analysis to 
solve, than if we regard it in any other light/ 

It is in respect both of (i) and {%) that the change 
in Romanes' thought as exhibited in his later 
Notes is most conspicuous 1 . 

At what date George Romanes' mind began to 
react from the conclusions of the Candid Examina- 
tion I cannot say. But after a period of ten years — 
in his Rede lecture of 1885 2 — we find his frame 
of mind very much changed. This lecture, on 
Mind and Motion^ consists of a severe criticism 
of the materialistic account of mind. On the 

1 With reference to trie views and arguments of the Candid 
Examination, it may be interesting to notice here in detail that 
George Romanes (i) came to attach much more importance to the sub- 
jective religious needs and intuitions of the human spirit (pp. 131 ff.); 

(2) perceived that the subjective religious consciousness can be 
regarded objectively as a broad human phenomenon (pp. 147 f.) ; 

(3) criticized his earlier theory of causation and returned towards the 
theory that all causation is volitional (pp. 102, 118) ; (4) definitely 
repudiated the materialistic account of the origin of mind (pp. 30, 31) ; 
(5) returned to the use of the expression 'the argument from 
design/ and therefore presumably abandoned his strong objection 
to it ; (6) ' saw through ' Herbert Spencer's refutation of the wider 
teleology expressed by Baden Powell, and felt the force of the 
teleology again (p. 72) ; (7) recognized that the scientific objections 
to the doctrine of the freedom of the will are not finally valid (p. 128). 

2 See Contemp07'ary Review, July 1885, p. 93. 



Editor s Preface 31 

other hand 'spiritualism' — or the theory which 
would suppose that mind is the cause of motion — 
is pronounced from the point of view of science not 
impossible indeed but 'unsatisfactory,' and the 
more probable conclusion is found in a ' monism ' 
like Bruno's — according to which mind and motion 
are co-ordinate and probably co-extensive aspects 
of the same universal fact — a monism which may 
be called Pantheism, but may also be regarded as 
an extension of contracted views of Theism 1 . The 
position represented by this lecture may be seen 
sufficiently from its conclusion : — 

' If the advance of natural science is now steadily 
leading us to the conclusion that there is no 
motion without mind, must we not see how the 
independent conclusion of mental science is thus 
independently confirmed — the conclusion, I mean, 
that there is no being without knowing? To me, 
at least, it does appear that the time has come 
when we may begin, as it were in a dawning light, 

1 In some ' Notes ' of the Summer of 1893 I find the statement, 
' The result (of philosophical inquiry) has been that in his millen- 
nial contemplation and experience man has attained certainty with 
regard to certain aspects of the world problem, no less secure than 
that which he has gained in the domain of physical science, e. g. 

Logical priority of mind over matter. 

Consequent untenability of materialism. 

Relativity of knowledge. 

The order of nature, conservation of energy and indestructibility 
of matter within human experience, the principle of evolution 
and survival of the fittest.' 



32 Thoughts on Religion 

to see that the study of Nature and the study of 
Mind are meeting upon this greatest of possible 
truths. And if this is the case — if there is no 
motion without mind, no being without knowing — 
shall we infer, with Clifford, that universal being 
is mindless, or answer with a dogmatic negative 
that most stupendous of questions — Is there know- 
ledge with the Most High? If there is no motion 
without mind, no being without knowing may 
we not rather infer, with Bruno, that it is in the 
medium of mind, and in the medium of knowledge, 
we live, and move, and have our being? 

' This, I think, is the direction in which the 
inference points, if we are careful to set out the 
logical conditions with complete impartiality. But 
the ulterior question remains, whether, so far as 
science is concerned, it is here possible to point any 
inference at all : the whole orbit of human know- 
ledge may be too narrow to afford a parallax for 
measurements so vast. Yet even here, if it be true 
that the voice of science must thus of necessity 
speak the language of agnosticism, at least let us 
see to it that the language is pure 1 ; let us not 
tolerate any barbarisms introduced from the side of 
aggressive dogma. So shall we find that this new 
grammar of thought does not admit of any con- 
structions radically opposed to more venerable 
ways of thinking ; even if we do not find that the 
often-quoted words of its earliest formulator apply 
with special force to its latest dialects — that if a 

1 For the meaning of 'pure ' agnosticism see below, p. 107 ff. 



Editor 5 Preface 33 

little knowledge of physiology and a little know- 
ledge of psychology dispose men to atheism, a 
deeper knowledge of both, and, still more, a deeper 
thought upon their relations to one another, will 
lead men back to some form of religion, which 
if it be more vague, may also be more worthy than 
that of earlier days.' 

Some time before 1889 three articles were 
written for the Nineteenth Century on the Influence 
of Science upon Religion. They were never pub- 
lished, for what reason I am not able to ascertain. 
But I have thought it worth while to print the first 
two of them as a ' first part 5 of this volume, both 
because they contain — written in George Romanes' 
own name — an important criticism upon the Candid 
Examination which he had published anonymously, 
and also because, with their entirely sceptical result, 
they exhibit very clearly a stage in the mental 
history of their author. The antecedents of these 
papers those who have read this Introduction 
will now be in a position to understand. What 
remains to be said by way of further introduction 
to the Notes had better be reserved till later. 

C. G. 



PART I. 



C 2 



THE INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE 
UPON RELIGION, 



I. 



I PROPOSE to consider, in a series of three papers, 
the influence of Science upon Religion. In doing 
this I shall seek to confine myself to the strictly 
rational aspect of the subject, without travelling 
into any matters of sentiment. Moreover, I shall 
aim at estimating in the first instance the kind 
and degree of influence which has been exerted 
by Science upon Religion in the past, and then 
go on to estimate the probable extent of this 
influence in the future. The first two papers will 
be devoted to the past and prospective influence 
of Science upon Natural Religion, while the third 
will be devoted to the past and prospective influence 
of Science upon Revealed Religion 1 . 

Few subjects have excited so much interest of 
late years as that which I thus mark out for dis- 
cussion. This can scarcely be considered a matter 

1 [The third paper is not published because Romanes' views 
on the relation between science and faith in Revealed Religion are 
better and more maturely expressed in the Notes. — Ed.] 



38 Thoughts on Religion 

of surprise, seeing that the influence in question 
is not only very direct, but also extremely im- 
portant from every point of view. For generations 
and for centuries in succession Religion maintained 
an undisputed sway over men's minds — if not 
always as a practical guide in matters of conduct, 
at least as a regulator of belief. Even among the 
comparatively few who in previous centuries pro- 
fessedly rejected Christianity, there can be no 
doubt that their intellectual conceptions were 
largely determined by it : for Christianity being 
then the only court of appeal with reference to 
all these conceptions, even the few minds which 
were professedly without its jurisdiction could 
scarcely escape its indirect influence through the 
minds of others. But as side by side with the 
venerable institution a new court of appeal was 
gradually formed, we cannot wonder that it should 
have come to be regarded in the light of a rival 
to the old — more especially as the searching 
methods of its inquiry and the certain character 
of its judgements were much more in consonance 
with the requirements of an age disposed to scep- 
ticism. And this spirit of rivalry is still further 
fostered by the fact that Science has unquestionably 
exerted upon Religion what Mr. Fiske terms a 
' purifying influence.' That is to say, not only 
are the scientific methods of inquiry after truth 
more congenial to sceptical minds than are the 
religious methods (which may broadly be defined 
as accepting truth on authority), but the results 
of the former have more than once directly con- 



Influence of Science upon Religion 39 

tradicted those of the latter : science has in several 
cases incontestably demonstrated that religious 
teaching has been wrong as to matters of fact. 
Further still, the great advance of natural know- 
ledge which has characterized the present century, 
has caused our ideas upon many subjects connected 
with philosophy to undergo a complete meta- 
morphosis. A well-educated man of the present 
day is absolutely precluded from regarding some 
of the Christian dogmas from the same intellectual 
standpoint as his forefathers, even though he may 
still continue to accept them in some other sense. 
In short, our whole key of thinking or tone of 
thought having been in certain respects changed, 
we can no longer anticipate that in these respects 
it should continue to harmonize with the unalterable 
system of theology. 

Such I conceive to be the ways in which 
Science has exerted her influence upon Religion, 
and it is needless to dwell upon the potency 
of their united effect. No one can read even 
a newspaper without perceiving how great this 
effect has been. On the one hand, sceptics are 
triumphantly confident that the light of dawning 
knowledge has begun finally to dispel the darkness 
of superstition, while religious persons, on the 
other hand, tremble to think what the future, 
if judged by the past, is likely to bring forth. 
On both sides we have free discussion, strong 
language, and earnest canvassing. Year by year 
stock is taken, and year by year the balance is 
found to preponderate in favour of Science. 



40 Thoughts on Religion 

This being the state of things of the present 
time, I think that with the experience of the kind 
and degree of influence which Science has exerted 
upon Religion in the past, we have material enough 
whereby to estimate the probable extent of such 
influence in the future. This, therefore, I shall 
endeavour to do by seeking to define, on general 
principles, the limits within which it is antecedently 
possible that the influence in question can be 
exercised. But in order to do this, it is necessary 
to begin by estimating the kind and degree of the 
influence which has been exerted by Science upon 
Religion in the past. 

Thus much premised, we have in the first place 
to define the essential nature both of Science and 
of Religion : for this is clearly the first step in an 
analysis which has for its object an estimation 
of the actual and possible effects of one of these 
departments of thought upon the other. 

Science, then, is essentially a department of 
thought having exclusive reference to the Proxi- 
mate. More particularly, it is a department of 
thought having for its object the explanation 
of natural phenomena by the discovery of natural 
(or proximate) causes. In so far as Science ventures 
to trespass beyond this her only legitimate domain, 
and seeks to interpret natural phenomena by the 
immediate agency of supernatural or ultimate 
causes, in that degree has she ceased to be physical 
science, and become ontological speculation. The 
truth of this statement has now been practically 
recogniz d by all scientific workers ; and terms 



Influence of Science upon Religion 41 

describing final causes have been banished from 
their vocabulary in astronomy, chemistry, geology, 
biology, and even in psychology. 

Religion, on the other hand, is a department 
of thought having no less exclusive reference to 
the Ultimate. More particularly, it is a depart- 
ment of thought having for its object a self-conscious 
and intelligent Being, which it regards as a Personal 
God. and the fountain-head of all causation. I am, 
of course, aware that the term Religion has been 
of late years frequently used in senses which this 
definition would not cover ; but I conceive that 
this only shows how frequently the term in question 
has been abused. To call any theory of things 
a Religion which does not present any belief in 
any form of Deity, is to apply the word to the 
very opposite of that which it has hitherto been 
used to denote. To speak of the Religion of the 
Unknowable, the Religion of Cosmism, the Religion 
of Humanity, and so forth, where the personality 
of the First Cause is not recognized, is as unmeaning 
as it would be to speak of the love of a triangle, 
or the rationality of the equator. That is to say, 
if any meaning is to be extracted from the terms 
at all, it is only to be so by using them in some 
metaphorical sense. We may, for instance, say 
that there is such a thing as a Religion of Humanity, 
because we may begin by deifying Humanity in 
our own estimation, and then go on to worship 
our ideal. But by thus giving Humanity the name 
of Deity we are not really creating a new religion : 
we are merely using a metaphor, which may or 



42 Thoughts on Religion 

may not be successful as a matter of poetic diction, 
but which most assuredly presents no shred of 
value as a matter of philosophical statement. In- 
deed, in this relation it is worse than valueless : 
it is misleading. Variations or reversals in the 
meanings of words are not of uncommon occurrence 
in the ordinary growth of languages ; but it is not 
often that we find, as in this case, the whole 
meaning of a term intentionally and gratuitously 
changed by the leaders of philosophical thought. 
Humanity, for example, is an abstract idea of our 
own making : it is not an object any more than 
the equator is an object. Therefore, if it were 
possible to construct a religion by this curious 
device of metaphorically ascribing to Humanity 
the attributes of Deity, it ought to be as logically 
possible to construct, let us say, a theory of 
brotherly regard towards the equator, by meta- 
phorically ascribing to it the attributes of man. 
The distinguishing features of any theory which 
can properly be termed a Religion, is that it should 
refer to the ultimate source, or sources, of things : 
and that it should suppose this source to be of an 
objective, intelligent, and personal nature. To 
apply the term Religion to any other theory is 
merely to abuse it. 

From these definitions, then, it appears that the 
aims and methods of Science are exclusively con- 
cerned with the ascertaining and the proof of the 
proximate How of things and processes physical : 
her problem is, as Mill states it, to discover what 
are the fewest number of (phenomenal) data which, 



Influence of Science upon Religion 43 

being granted, will explain the phenomena of 
experience. On the other hand, Religion is not in 
any way concerned with causation, further than to 
assume that all things and all processes are 
ultimately due to intelligent personality. Religion 
is thus, as Mr. Spencer says, ' an a priori theory of 
the universe ' — to which, however, we must add, c and 
a theory which assumes intelligent personality as 
the originating source of the universe.' Without 
this needful addition, a religion would be in no 
way logically distinguished from a philosophy. 

From these definitions, then, it clearly follows 
that in their purest forms, Science and Religion 
really have no point of logical contact. Only if 
Science could transcend the conditions of space 
and time, of phenomenal relativity, and of all 
human limitations, only then could Science be in 
a position to touch the supernatural theory of 
Religion. But obviously, if Science could do this, 
she would cease to be Science. In soaring above 
the region of phenomena and entering the tenuous 
aether of noumena, her present wings, which we 
call her methods, would in such an atmosphere be 
no longer of any service for movement. Out of 
time, out of place, and out of phenomenal relation, 
Science could no longer exist as such. 

On the other hand, Religion in its purest form is 
equally incompetent to affect Science. For, as we 
have already seen, Religion as such is not con- 
cerned with the phenomenal sphere : her theory of 
ontology cannot have any reference to the How 
of phenomenal causation. Hence it is evident 



44 Thoughts on Religion 

that, as in their purest or most ideal forms they 
move in different mental planes, Science and 
Religion cannot exhibit interference. 

Thus far the remarks which I have made apply 
equally to all forms of Religion, as such, whether 
actual or possible, and in so far as the Religion is 
pare. But it is notorious that until quite recently 
Religion did exercise upon Science, not only an 
influence, but an overpowering influence. Eelief 
in divine agency being all but universal, while the 
methods of scientific research had not as yet been 
distinctly formulated, it was in previous generations 
the usual habit of mind to refer any natural 
phenomenon, the physical causation of which had 
not been ascertained, to the more or less imme- 
diate causal action of the Deity. But we now see 
that this habit of mind arose from a failure to 
distinguish between the essentially distinct char- 
acters of Science and Religion as departments of 
thought, and therefore that it was only so far as 
the Religion of former times was impure — or 
mixed with the ingredients of thought which 
belong to Science — that the baleful influence in 
question was exerted. The gradual, successive, 
and now all but total abolition of final causes from 
the thoughts of scientific men, to which allusion 
has already been made, is merely an expression of 
the fact that scientific men as a body have come 
fully to recognize the fundamental distinction be- 
tween Science and Religion which I have stated. 

Or, to put the matter in another way, scientific 
men as a body — and, indeed, all persons whose 



Influence of Science upon Religion 45 

ideas on such matters are abreast of the times — 
perceive plainly enough that a religious explanation 
of any natural phenomenon is, from a scientific 
point of view, no explanation at all. For a 
religious explanation consists in referring the 
observed phenomenon to the First Cause — i.e. to 
merge that particular phenomenon in the general 
or final mystery of things. A scientific explana- 
tion, on the other hand, consists in referring the 
observed phenomenon to its physical causes, and 
in no case can such an explanation entertain the 
hypothesis of a final cause without abandoning its 
character as a scientific explanation. For example, 
if a child brings me a flower and asks why it has 
such a curious form, bright colour, sweet perfume, 
and so on, and if I answer, Because God made it 
so, I am not really answering the child's question : 
I am merely concealing my ignorance of Nature 
under a guise of piety, and excusing my indolence 
in the study of botany. It was the appreciation 
of this fact that led Mr. Darwin to observe in his 
Origin of Species that the theory of creation does 
not serve to explain any of the facts with which it 
is concerned, but merely re-states these facts as 
they are observed to occur. That is to say, by 
thus merging the facts as observed into the final 
mystery of things, we are not even attempting to 
explain them in any scientific sense : for it would 
be obviously possible to get rid of the necessity 
of thus explaining any natural phenomenon what- 
soever by referring it to the immediate causal 
action of the Deity. If any phenomenon were 



46 Thoughts on Religion 

actually to occur which did proceed from the 
immediate causal action of the Deity, then ex 
hypothesis there would be no physical causes to 
investigate, and the occupation of Othello, in the 
person of a man of science, would be gone. Such 
a phenomenon would be miraculous, and therefore 
from its very nature beyond the reach of scientific 
investigation. 

Properly speaking, then, the religious theory of 
final causes does not explain any of the phenomena 
of Nature : it merely re-states the phenomena as 
observed — or, if we prefer so to say, it is itself an 
ultimate and universal explanation of all possible 
phenomena taken collectively. For it must be 
admitted that behind all possible explanations of a 
scientific kind, there lies a great inexplicable, which 
just because of its ultimate character, cannot be 
merged into anything further — that is to say, 
cannot be explained, ' It is what it is/ is all that 
we can say of it : ' I am that I am ' is all that it 
could say of itself. And it is in referring phe- 
nomena to this inexplicable source of physical 
causation that the theory of Religion essentially 
consists. The theory of Science, on the other hand, 
consists in the assumption that there is always 
a practically endless chain of physical causation to 
investigate — i.e. an endless series of phenomena to 
be explained. So that, if we define the process of 
explanation as the process of referring observed 
phenomena to their adequate causes, we may say 
that Religion, by the aid of a general theory of 
things in the postulation of an intelligent First 



Influence of Science upon Religion 47 

Cause, furnishes to her own satisfaction an ultimate 
explanation of the universe as a whole, and 
therefore is not concerned with any of those proxi- 
mate explanations or discovery of second causes, 
which form the exclusive subject-matter of Science. 
In other words, we recur to the definitions already 
stated, to the effect that Religion is a department 
of thought having, as such, exclusive reference to 
the Ultimate, while Science is a department cf 
thought having, as such, no less exclusive reference 
to the Proximate. When these two departments 
of thought overlap, interference results, and we 
find confusion. Therefore it was that when the 
religious theory of final causes intruded upon the 
field of scientific inquiry, it was passing beyond its 
logical domain ; and seeking to arrogate the function 
of explaining this or that phenomenon in detail 
it ceased to be a purely religious theory, while at 
the same time and for the same reason it blocked 
the way of scientific progress \ 

This remark serves to introduce one of the chief 
topics with which I have to deal — viz. the doctrine 
of Design in Nature, and thus the whole question 
of Natural Religion in its relation to Natural 
Science. In handling this topic I shall endeavour 

1 To avoid misunderstanding I may observe that in the above 
definitions I am considering Religion and Science under the condi- 
tions in which they actually exist. It is conceivable that under 
other conditions these two departments of thought might not be so 
sharply separated. Thus, for instance, if a Religion were to appear 
carrying a revelation to Science upon matters of physical causation, 
such a Religion (supposing the revelation were found by experiment 
to be true) ought to be held to exercise upon Science a strictly 
legitimate influence. 



48 Thoughts on Religion 

to take as broad and deep a view as I can of the 
present standing of Natural Religion, without 
waiting to show step by step the ways and means 
by which it has been brought into this position, by 
the influence of Science. 

In the earliest dawn of recorded thought, 
teleology in some form or another has been the 
most generally accepted theory whereby the order 
of Nature is explained. It is not, however, my 
object in this paper to trace the history of this 
theory from its first rude beginnings in Fetishism 
to its final development in Theism. I intend to 
devote myself exclusively to the question as to the 
present standing of this theory, and I allude to its 
past history only in order to examine the state- 
ment which is frequently made, to the effect that 
its general prevalence in all ages and among all 
peoples of the world lends to it a certain degree of 
' antecedent credibility.' With reference to this 
point, I should say, that, whether or not the order 
of Nature is due to a disposing Mind, the hypo- 
thesis of mental agency in Nature — or, as the 
Duke of Argyll terms it, the hypothesis of 
' anthropopsychism ' — must necessarily have been 
the earliest hypothesis. What we find in Nature 
is the universal prevalence of causation, and long 
before the no less universal equivalency between 
causes and effects — i.e. the universal prevalence of 
natural law — became a matter of even the [vaguest] 
appreciation, the general fact that nothing happens 
without a cause of some kind was fully recognized. 
Indeed, the recognition of this fact is not only pre- 



Influence of Science upon Religion 49 

sented by the lowest races of the present day, but, 
as I have myself given evidence to show, likewise 
by animals and infants \ And therefore, it appears 
to me probable that those psychologists are right 
who argue that the idea of cause is intuitive, in the 
same sense that the ideas of space and time are 
intuitive — i. e. the instinctive or [inherited] effect of 
ancestral experience. 

Now if it is thus a matter of certainty that the 
recognition of causality in Nature is co-extensive 
with, and even anterior to, the human mind, it 
appears to me no less certain that the first attempt 
at assigning a cause of this or that observed event 
in Nature — i. e. the first attempts at a rational 
explanation of the phenomena of Nature — must 
have been of an anthropopsychic kind. No other 
explanation was, as it were, so ready to hand as 
that of projecting into external Nature the agency 
of volition, which was known to each individual as 
the apparent fountain-head of causal activity so far 
as he and his neighbours were concerned. To 
reach this most obvious explanation of causality in 
Nature, it did not require that primitive man 
should know, as we know, that the very conception 
of causality arises out of our sense of effort in 
voluntary action ; it only required that this should 
be the fact, and then it must needs follow that 
when any natural phenomenon was thought about 
at all with reference to its causality, the cause 
inferred should be one of a psychical kind. I need 
not wait to trace the gradual integration of this 

1 Mental Evolution in Animals, pp. 155-8. 
D 



50 Thoughts on Religion 

anthropopsychic hypothesis from its earliest and 
most diffused form of what we may term poly- 
psychism (wherein the causes inferred were almost 
as personally numerous as the effects contem- 
plated), through polytheism (wherein many effects 
of a like kind were referred to one deity, who, as 
it were, took special charge over that class), up to 
monotheism (wherein all causation is gathered up 
into the monopsychism of a single personality) : it is 
enough thus briefly to show that from first to last the 
hypothesis of anthropopsychism is a necessary phase 
of mental evolution under existing conditions, and 
this whether or not the hypothesis is true. 

Thus viewed, I do not think that 'the general 
consent of mankind ' is a fact of any argumentative 
weight in favour of the anthropopsychic theory — so 
far, I mean, as the matter of causation is con- 
cerned — whether this be in fetishism or in the 
teleology of our own day : the general consent of 
mankind in the larger question of theism (where 
sundry other matters besides causation fall to be 
considered) does not here concern us. Indeed, it 
appears to me that if we are to go back to the 
savages for any guarantee of our anthropopsychic 
theory, the pledge which we receive is of worse 
than no value. As well might we conclude that a 
match is a living organism, because this is to the 
mind of a savage the most obvious explanation of 
its movements, as conclude on precisely similar 
grounds that our belief in teleology derives any 
real support from any of the more primitive phases 
of anthropopsychism. 



Influence of Science upon Religion 51 

It seems to me, therefore, that in seeking to 
estimate the evidence of design in Nature, we must 
as it were start de novo, without reference to 
anterior beliefs upon the subject. The question is 
essentially one to be considered in the light of all 
the latest knowledge that we possess, and by the 
best faculties of thinking that we (the heirs of all 
the ages) are able to bring to bear upon it. I shall, 
therefore, only allude to the history of anthropo- 
psychism in so far as I may find it necessary to do 
so for the sake of elucidating my argument. 

And here it is needful to consider first what Paley 
called c the state of the argument ' before the 
Darwinian epoch. This is clearly and tersely 
presented by Paky in his classical illustration of 
finding a watch upon a heath — an illustration so 
well known that I need not here re-state it. I will 
merely observe, therefore, that it conveys, as it 
were in one's watch-pocket, the whole of the 
argument from design ; and that it is not in 
my opinion open to the stricture which was 
passed upon it by Mill where he says, — 'The 
inference would not be from marks of design, but 
because I already know by direct experience that 
watches are made by men.' This appears to me 
to miss the whole point of Paley's meaning, for 
there would be obviously no argument at all unless 
he be understood to mean that the evidence of 
design which is supposed to be afforded by 
examination of the watch, is supposed to be 
afforded by this examination only, and not from 
any of the direct knowledge alluded to by Mill. 

D 2 



52 Thoughts on Religion 

For the purposes of the illustration, it must clearly 
be assumed that the finder of the watch has no 
previous or direct knowledge touching the manu- 
facture of watches. Apart from this curious 
misunderstanding, Mill was at one with Paley 
upon the whole subject. 

Again, it is no real objection to the argument 
or illustration to say, as we often have said, that it 
does not account for the watchmaker. The object 
of the argument from design is to prove the ex- 
istence of a designer: not to explain that existence. 
Indeed, it would be suicidal to the whole argument 
in its relation to Theism, if the possibility of 
any such explanation were entertained ; for such 
a possibility could only be entertained on the 
supposition that the being of the Deity admits 
of being explained— i.e. that the Deity is not 
ultimate. 

Lastly, the argument is precisely the same 
as that which occurs in numerous passages of 
Scripture and in theological writings all over the 
world down to the present time. That is to say, 
everywhere in organic nature we meet with in- 
numerable adaptations of means to ends, which 
in very many cases present a degree of refinement 
and complexity in comparison with which the 
adaptations of means to ends in a watch are but 
miserable and rudimentary attempts at mechanism. 
No one can know so well as the modern biologist 
in what an immeasurable degree the mechanisms 
which occur in such profusion in nature surpass, 
in every form of excellence, the highest triumphs 



Influence of Science upon Religion 53 

of human invention. Hence at first sight it does 
unquestionably appear that we could have no 
stronger or better evidence of purpose than is thus 
afforded. In the words of Paley : * arrangement, 
disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an 
end, relation of instruments to a use, imply the 
presence of intelligence and mind.' 

But next the question arises, Although such 
things certainly [may] x imply the presence of mind 
as their explanatory cause, are we entitled to 
assume that there can be in nature no other cause 
competent to produce these effects? This is a ques- 
tion which never seems to have occurred to Paley, 
Bell, Chalmers, or indeed to any of the natural 
theologians up to the time of Darwin. This, I think, 
is a remarkable fact, because the question is one 
which, as a mere matter of logical form, appears 
to lie so much upon the surface. But nevertheless 
the fact remains that natural theologians, so far 
as I know without exception, were satisfied to 
assume as an axiom that mechanism could have 
no cause other than that of a designing mind ; 
and therefore their work was restricted to tracing 
out in detail the number and the excellency of the 
mechanisms which were to be met with in nature. 
It is, however, obvious that the mere accumulation 
of such cases can have no real, or logical, effect upon 
the argument. The mechanisms which we en- 
counter in nature are so amazing in their perfections, 
that the attentive study of any one of them would 
(as Paley in his illustration virtually, though not 

1 [I have put ' may ' in place of * do ' for the sake of argument. — Ed.] 



54 Thoughts on Religion 

expressly, contends) be sufficient to carry the 
whole position, if the assumption be conceded 
that mechanism can only be due to mind. There- 
fore the argument is not really, or logically, 
strengthened by the mere accumulation of any 
number of special cases of mechanism in nature, 
all as mechanisms similar in kind. Let us now 
consider this argument. 

If we are disposed to wonder why natural 
theologians prior to the days of Darwin were 
content to assume that mind is the only possible 
cause of mechanism, I think we have a ready 
answer in the universal prevalence of their belief 
in special creation. For I think it is unquestionable 
that, upon the basis of this belief, the assumption 
is legitimate. That is to say, if we start with the 
belief that all species of plants and animals were 
originally introduced to the complex conditions 
of their several environments suddenly and ready 
made (in some such manner as watches are turned 
out from • a manufactory), then I think we are 
reasonably entitled to assume that no conceivable 
cause, other than that of intelligent purpose, could 
possibly be assigned in explanation of the effects. 
It is, of course, needless to observe that in so 
far as this previous belief in special creation was 
thus allowed to affect the argument from design, 
that argument became an instance of circular 
reasoning. And it is, perhaps, equally needless to 
observe that the mere fact of evolution, as dis- 
tinguished from special creation — or of the gradual 
development of living mechanisms, as distinguished 



Influence of Science upon Religion 55 

from their sudden and ready-made apparition — 
would not in any way affect the argument from 
design, unless it could be shown that the process 
of evolution admits the possibility of some other 
cause which is not admitted by the hypothesis 
of special creation. But this is precisely what 
is shown by the theory of evolution as propounded 
by Darwin. That is to say, the theory of the 
gradual development of living mechanisms pro- 
pounded by Darwin, is something more than 
a theory of gradual development as distinguished 
from sudden creation. It is this, but it is also 
a theory of a purely scientific kind which seeks 
to explain the purely physical causes of that 
development. And this is the point where natural 
science begins to exert her influence upon natural 
theology — or the point where the theory of 
evolution begins to affect the theory of design. 
As this is a most important part of our subject, 
and one upon which an extraordinary amount of 
confusion at the present time prevails, I shall in 
my next paper carefully consider it in all its 
bearings. 



II. 



SUPPOSE the man who found the watch upon 
a heath to continue his walk till he comes down to 
the sea-shore, and suppose further that he is as 
ignorant of physical geography as he is of watch- 
making. He soon begins to observe a number 
of adaptations of means to ends, which, if less 
refined and delicate than those that formed the 
object of his study in the watch, are on the other 
hand much more impressive from the greatly 
larger scale on which they are displayed. First, 
he observes that there is a beautiful basin hollowed 
out in the land for the reception of a bay ; that 
the sides of this basin, which from being near its 
opening are most exposed to the action of large 
rolling billows, are composed of rocky cliffs, 
evidently in order to prevent the further encroach- 
ment of the sea, and the consequent destruction 
of the entire bay; that the sides of the basin, 
which from being successively situated more inland 
are successively less and less exposed to the action 
of large waves, are constituted successively of 
smaller rocks, passing into shingle, and eventually 
into the finest sand : that as the tides rise and fall 
with as great a regularity as was exhibited by the 
movements of the watch, the stones are carefully 



Influence of Science upon Religion 57 

separated out from the sand to be arranged in 
sloping layers by themselves, and this always 
with a most beautiful reference to the places round 
the margin of the basin which are most in danger 
of being damaged by the action of the waves. He 
would further observe, upon closer inspection, that 
this process of selective arrangement goes into 
matters of the most minute detail. Here, for 
instance, he would observe a mile or two of a 
particular kind of seaweed artistically arranged in 
one long sinuous line upon the beach ; there he 
would see a wonderful deposit of shells; in another 
place a lovely little purple heap of garnet sand, the 
minute particles of which have all been carefully 
picked out from the surrounding acres of yellow 
sand. Again, he would notice that the streams 
which come down to the bay are all flowing in 
channels admirably dug out for the purpose; and, 
being led by curiosity to investigate the teleology 
of these various streams, he would find that they 
serve to supply the water which the sea loses by 
evaporation, and also, by a wonderful piece of 
adjustment, to furnish fresh water to those animals 
and plants which thrive best in fresh water, and 
yet by their combined action to carry down 
sufficient mineral constituents to give that pre- 
cise degree of saltness to the sea as a whole which 
is required for the maintenance of pelagic life. 
Lastly, continuing his investigations along this 
line of inquiry, he would find that a thousand 
different habitats were all thoughtfully adapted 
to the needs of a hundred thousand different forms 



58 Thoughts on Religion 

of life, none of which could survive if these 
habitats were reversed. Now, I think that our 
imaginary inquirer would be a dull man if, as the 
result of all this study, he failed to conclude that 
the evidence of Design furnished by the marine 
bay was at least as cogent as that which he had 
previously found in his study of the watch. 

But there is this great difference between the 
two cases. Whereas by subsequent inquiry he 
could ascertain as a matter of fact that- the watch 
was due to intelligent contrivance, he could make 
no such discovery with reference to the marine 
bay : in the one case intelligent contrivance as 
a cause is independently demonstrable, while in 
the other case it can only be inferred. What, 
then, is the value of the inference ? 

If, after the studies of our imaginary teleologist 
had been completed, he were introduced to the 
library of the Royal Society, and if he were then 
to spend a year or two in making himself 
acquainted with the leading results of modern 
science, I fancy that he would end by being both 
a wiser and a sadder man. At least I am certain 
that in learning more he would feel that he is 
understanding less — that the archaic simplicity of 
his earlier explanations must give place to a 
matured perplexity upon the whole subject. To 
begin with, he would now find that every one of 
the adjustments of means to ends which excited 
his admiration on the sea-coast were due to 
physical causes which are perfectly well understood. 
The cliffs stood at the opening of the bay because 



Influence of Science upon Religion 59 

the sea in past ages had encroached upon the 
coast-line until it met with these cliffs, which then 
opposed its further progress ; the bay was a 
depression in the land which happened to be there 
when the sea arrived, and into which the sea 
consequently flowed ; the successive occurrence 
of rocks, shingle, and sand was due to the actions 
of the waves themselves ; the segregation of sea- 
weeds, shells, pebbles, and different kinds of sand, 
was due to their different degrees of specific 
gravity ; the fresh-water streams ran in channels 
because they had themselves been the means 
of excavating them ; and the multitudinous forms 
of life were all adapted to their several habitats 
simply because the unsuited forms were not able 
to live in them. In all these cases, therefore, our 
teleologist in the light of fuller knowledge w 7 ould 
be compelled to conclude at least this much — that 
the adaptations which he had so greatly admired 
when he supposed that they were all due to con- 
trivance in anticipation of the existing phenomena, 
cease to furnish the same evidence of intelligent 
design when it is found that no one of them 
was prepared beforehand by any independent or 
external cause. 

He would therefore be led to conclude that if 
the teleological interpretation of the facts were 
to be saved at all, it could only be so by taking 
a much wider view of the subject than was afforded 
by the particular cases of apparent design which 
at first appeared so cogent. That is to say, he 
would feel that he must abandon the supposition 



60 Thoughts on Religion 

of any special design in the construction of that 
particular bay, and fall back upon the theory of 
a much more general design in the construction 
of one great scheme of Nature as a whole. In 
short he would require to dislodge his argument 
from the special adjustments which in the first 
instance appeared to him so suggestive, to those 
general laws of Nature which by their united 
operation give rise to a cosmos as distinguished 
from a chaos. 

Now I have been careful thus to present in all its 
more important details an imaginary argument 
drawn from inorganic nature, because it furnishes 
a complete analogy to the actual argument which 
is drawn from organic nature. Without any ques- 
tion, the instances of apparent design, or of the 
apparently intentional adaptation of means to ends, 
which we meet with in organic nature, are 
incomparably more numerous and suggestive than 
anything with which we meet in inorganic nature. 
But if once we find good reason to conclude that 
the former, like the latter, are all due, not to the 
immediate, special and prospective action of a 
contriving intelligence (as in watch-making or 
creation), but to the agency of secondary or 
physical causes acting under the influence of what 
we call general laws, then it seems to me that 
no matter how T numerous or how wonderful the 
adaptations of means to ends in organic nature 
may be, they furnish one no other or better 
evidence of design than is furnished by any of the 
facts of inorganic nature. 



Influence of Science upon Religion 61 

For the sake of clearness let us take any special 
case. Paley says, ' I know of no better method 
of introducing so large a subject than that of 
comparing a single thing with a single thing ; an 
eye, for example, with a telescope.' He then goes 
on to point out the analogies between these two 
pieces of apparatus, and ends by asking, ' How 
is it possible, under circumstances of such close 
affinity, and under the operation of equal evidence, 
to exclude contrivance in the case of the eye, yet 
to acknowledge the proof of contrivance having 
been employed, as the plainest and clearest of 
all propositions in the case of the telescope ? ' 

Well, the answ r er to be made is that only upon 
the hypothesis of special creation can this analogy 
hold : on the hypothesis of evolution by physical 
causes the evidence in the two cases is not equal. 
For, upon this hypothesis we have the eye be- 
ginning, not as a ready-made structure prepared 
beforehand for the purposes of seeing, but as a 
mere differentiation of the ends of nerves in the 
skin, probably in the first instance to enable them 
better to discriminate changes of temperature. 
Pigment having been laid down in these places 
the better to secure this purpose (I use teleological 
terms for the sake of brevity), the nerve-ending 
begins to distinguish between light and darkness. 
The better to secure this further purpose, the 
simplest conceivable form of lens begins to appear 
in the shape of small refractive bodies. Behind 
these sensory cells are developed, forming the 
earliest indication of a retina presenting a single 



62 Thoughts on Religion 

layer. And so on, step by step, till we reach the 
eye of an eagle. 

Of course the teleologist will here answer — 'The 
fact of such a gradual building up is no argument 
against design : whether the structure appeared 
on a sudden or was the result of a slow elaboration, 
the marks of design in either case occur in the 
structure as it stands.' All of which is very true ; 
but I am not maintaining that the fact of a gradual 
development in itself does affect the argument 
from design. I am maintaining that it only does 
so because it reveals the possibility (excluded by 
the hypothesis of sudden or special creation) of 
the structure having been proximately due to the 
operation of physical causes. Thus, for the value 
of argument, let us assume that natural selection 
has been satisfactorily established as a cause 
adequate to account for all these effects. Given 
the facts of heredity, variation, struggle for 
existence, and the consequent survival of the fittest, 
what follows ? Why that each step in the pro- 
longed and gradual development of the eye was 
brought about by the elimination of all the less 
adapted structures in any given generation, i. e. the 
selection of all the better adapted to perpetuate 
the improvement by heredity. Will the teleologist 
maintain that this selective process is itself in- 
dicative of special design ? If so> it appears to me 
that he is logically bound to maintain that the long 
line of seaweed, the shells, the stones and the little 
heap of garnet sand upon the sea-coast are all 
equally indicative of special design. The general 



Influence of Science upon Religion 63 

laws relating to specific gravity are at least of as 
much importance in the economy of nature as are 
the general laws relating to specific differentiation ; 
and in each illustration alike we find the result 
of the operation of known physical causes to be 
that of selection. If it should be argued in reply 
that the selection in the one case is obviously 
purposeless, while in the other it is as obviously 
purposive, I answer that this is pure assumption. 
It is perhaps not too much to say that every 
geological formation on the face of the globe is 
either wholly or in part due to the selective influ- 
ence of specific gravity, and who shall say that the 
construction of the earth's crust is a less important 
matter in the general scheme of things (if there is 
such a scheme) than is the evolution of an eye? 
Or who shall say that because we see an ap- 
parently intentional adaptation of means to ends 
as the result of selection in the case of the eye, 
there is no intention served by the result of 
selection in the case of the sea-weeds, stones, 
sand, mud ? For anything that we can know to 
the contrary, the supposed intelligence may take 
a greater delight in the latter than in the former 
process. 

For the sake of clearness I have assumed that 
the physical causes with which we are already ac- 
quainted are sufficient to explain the observed 
phenomena of organic nature. But it clearly 
makes no difference whether or not this assumption 
is conceded, provided we allow that the observed 
phenomena are all due to physical causes of some 



64 Thoughts on Religion 

kind, be they known or unknown. That is to say, 
in whatever measure we exclude the hypothesis 
of the direct or immediate intervention of the Deity 
in organic nature (miracle), in that measure we are 
reducing the evidence of design in organic nature 
to precisely the same logical position as that which 
is occupied by the evidence of design in inorganic 
nature. . Hence I conceive that Mill has shown a 
singular want of penetration where, after observing 
with reference to natural selection, ' creative fore- 
thought is not absolutely the only link by which 
the origin of the wonderful mechanism of the eye 
may be connected with the fact of sight,' he goes 
on to say, { leaving this remarkable speculation (i. e. 
that of natural selection) to whatever fate the 
progress of discovery may have in store for it, in 
the present state of knowledge the adaptations 
in nature afford a large balance of probability 
in favour of creation by intelligence. ' I say this 
passage seems to me to show a singular want of 
penetration, and I say so because it appears to 
argue that the issue lies between the hypothesis 
of special design and the hypothesis of natural 
selection. But it does not do so. The issue really 
lies between special design and natural causes. 
Survival of the fittest is one of these causes which 
has been suggested, and shown by a large accumu- 
lation of evidence to be probably a true cause. 
But even if it were to be disproved as a cause, the 
real argumentative position of teleology would not 
thereby be effected, unless we were to conclude 
that there can be no other causes of a secondary 



Influence of Science upon Religion 65 

or physical kind concerned in the production of 
the observed adaptations. 

I trust that I have now made it sufficiently clear 
why I hold that if we believe the reign of natural 
law, or the operation of physical causes, to extend 
throughout organic nature in the same universal 
manner as we believe this in the case of inorganic 
nature, then we can find no better evidence of 
design in the one province than in the other. The 
mere fact that we meet with more numerous and 
apparently more complete instances of design in 
the one province than in the other is, ex hypothesis 
merely due to our ignorance of the natural causa- 
tion in the more intricate province. In studying 
biological phenomena we are all at present in the 
intellectual position of our imaginary teleologist 
when studying the marine bay : we do not know the 
natural causes which have produced the observed 
results. But if, after having obtained a partial key 
in the theory of natural selection, we trust to the 
large analogy which is afforded by the simpler 
provinces of Nature, and conclude that physical 
causes are everywhere concerned in the production 
of organic structures, then we have concluded that 
any evidence of design which these structures 
present is of just the same logical value as that 
which we may attach to the evidence of design in 
inorganic nature. If it should still be urged that 
the adaptations met with in organic nature are 
from their number and unity much more suggestive 
of design than anything met with in inorganic 
nature, I must protest that this is to change the 

E 



66 Thoughts on Religion 

ground of argument and to evade the only point in 
dispute. No one denies the obvious fact stated : 
the only question is whether any number and any 
quantity of adaptations in any one department of 
nature afford other or better evidence of design 
than is afforded by adaptations in other depart- 
ments, when all departments alike are supposed to 
be equally the outcome of physical causation. And 
this question I answer in the negative, because 
we have no means of ascertaining the extent to 
which the process of natural selection, or any 
other physical cause, is competent to produce 
adaptations of the kind observed. 

Thus, to take another instance of apparent design 
from inorganic nature, it has been argued that the 
constitution of the atmosphere is clearly designed 
for the support of vegetable and animal life. But 
before this conclusion can be established upon the 
facts, it must be shown that life could exist under 
no other material conditions than those which are 
furnished to it by the elementary constituents of 
the atmosphere. This, however, it is clearly im- 
possible to show. For anything that we can know 
to the contrary, life may actually be existing upon 
some of the other heavenly bodies under totally 
different conditions as to atmosphere ; and the 
fact that on this planet all life has come to be 
dependent upon the gases which occur in our 
atmosphere, may be due simply to the fact that it 
was only the forms of life which were able to adapt 
themselves (through natural selection or other 
physical causes) to these particular gases which 



Influence of Science upon Religion 67 

could possibly be expected to occur — just as in 
matters of still smaller detail, it was only those 
forms of life that were suited to their several 
habitats in the marine bay, which could possibly 
be expected to be found in these several situations. 
Now, if a set of adjustments so numerous and so 
delicate as those on which the relations of every 
known form of life to the constituent gases of the 
atmosphere are seen to depend, can thus be shown 
not necessarily to imply the action of any disposing 
intelligence, how is it possible to conclude that 
any less general exhibitions of adjustment imply 
this', so long as every case of adjustment, whether 
or not ultimately due to design, is regarded as 
proximately due to physical causes ? 

In view of these considerations, therefore, I think 
it is perfectly clear that if the argument from 
teleology is to be saved at all, it can only be so by 
shifting it from the narrow basis of special adapta- 
tions, to the broad area of Nature as a whole. And 
here I confess that to my mind the argument does 
acquire a weight which, if long and attentively 
considered, deserves to be regarded as enormous. 
For, although this and that particular adjustment 
in Nature may be seen to be proximately due to 
physical causes, and although we are prepared on 
the grounds of the largest possible analogy to infer 
that all other such particular cases are likewise due 
to physical causes, the more ultimate question 
arises, How is it that all physical causes conspire, 
by their united action, to the production of a general 
order of Nature ? It is against all analogy to sup-? 

E 2 



^8 Thoughts on Religion 

pose that such an end as this can be accomplished 
by such means as those, in the way of mere chance 
or c the fortuitous concourse of atoms.' We are led 
by the most fundamental dictates of our reason to 
conclude that there must be some cause for this co- 
operation of causes. I know that from Lucretius' 
time this has been denied ; but it has been denied 
only on grounds of feeling. No possible reason 
can be given for the denial which does not run 
counter to the law of causation itself. I am there- 
fore perfectly clear that the only question which, 
from a purely rational point of view, here stands 
to be answered is this — Of what nature are we to 
suppose the causa causarum to be ? 

On this point only two hypotheses have ever been 
advanced, and I think it is impossible to conceive 
that any third one is open. Of these two hypotheses 
the earliest, and of course the most obvious, is that 
of mental purpose. The other hypothesis is one 
which we owe to the far-reaching thought of 
Mr. Herbert Spencer. In Chapter VII of his First 
Principles he argues that all causation arises im- 
mediately out of existence as such, or, as he states 
it, that ' uniformity of law inevitably follows from 
the persistence of force.' For c if in any two cases 
there is exact likeness not only between those most 
conspicuous antecedents which we distinguish as 
the causes, but also between those accompanying 
antecedents which we call the conditions, we cannot 
affirm that the effects will differ, without affirming 
either that some force has come into existence or 
that some force has ceased to exist. If the co- 



Influence of Science upon Religion 69 

operative forces in the one case are equal to those in 
the other, each to each, in distribution and amount ; 
then it is impossible to conceive the product of 
their joint action in the one case as unlike that in 
the other, without conceiving one or more of the 
forces to have increased or diminished in quantity ; 
and this is conceiving that force is not persistent.' 

Now this interpretation of causality as the im- 
mediate outcome of existence must be considered 
first as a theory of causation, and next as a theory 
in relation to Theism. As a theory of causation it 
has not met with the approval of mathematicians, 
physicists, or logicians, leading representatives of 
all these departments of thought having expressly 
opposed it, while, so far as I am aware, no repre- 
sentative of any one of them has spoken in its 
favour 1 . But with this point I am not at present 
concerned, for even if the theory were admitted to 
furnish a full and complete explanation of caus- 
ality, it would still fail to account for the har- 
monious relation of causes, or the fact with which 
we are now alone concerned. This distinction is 
not perceived by the anonymous author ' Physicus,' 
who, in his Candid Examination of Theism, lays 

1 A note (of 1893) contains the following : ■ Being, considered in 
the abstract, is logically equivalent to Not-Being or Nothing. For 
if by successive stages of abstraction, we divest the conception of 
Being of attribute and relation we reach the conception of that 
which cannot be, i.e. a logical contradiction, or the logical corre- 
lative of Being which is Nothing. (All this is well expressed in 
Caird's Evolution of Religion^) The failure to perceive this fact 
constitutes a ground fallacy in my Candid Examination of Theism, 
where I represent Being as being a sufficient explanation of the 
Order of Nature or the law of Causation.' 



70 Thoughts on Religion 

great stress upon Mr. Spencer's theory of causa- 
tion as subversive of Theism, or at least as super- 
seding the necessity of theistic hypothesis by 
furnishing a full explanation of the order of Nature 
on purely physical grounds. But he fails to per- 
ceive that even if Mr. Spencer's theory were con- 
ceded fully to explain all the facts of causality, 
it would in no wise tend to explain the cosmos in 
which these facts occur. It may be true that 
causation depends upon the 'persistence of force': 
it does not follow that all manifestations of force 
should on this account have been directed to 
occur as they do occur. For, if we follow back 
any sequence of physical causation, we soon find 
that it spreads out on all sides into a network of 
physical relations which are literally infinite both 
in space (conditions) and in time (antecedent 
causes). Now, even if we suppose that the per- 
sistence of force is a sufficient explanation of the 
occurrence of the particular sequence contemplated 
so far as the exhibition of force is there con- 
cerned, we are thus as far as ever from explain- 
ing the determination of this force into the 
particular channel through which it flows. It may 
be quite true that the resultant is determined as 
to magnitude and direction by the components; 
but what about the magnitude and direction of 
the components? If it is said that they in turn 
were determined by the outcome of previous sys- 
tems, how about these systems ? And so on till 
we spread away into the infinite network already 
mentioned. Only if we knew the origin of all 



Influence of Science upon Religion 71 

series of all such systems could we be in a posi- 
tion to say that an adequate intelligence might 
determine beforehand by calculation the state of 
any one part of the universe at any given instant 
of time. But, as the series are infinite both in 
number and extent, this knowledge is clearly out 
of the question. Moreover, even if it could be 
imagined as possible, it could only be so imagined 
at the expense of, supposing an origin of physical 
causation in time; and this amounts to sup- 
posing a state of things prior to such causation, 
and out of which it arose. But to suppose this is 
to suppose some extra-physical source of physical 
causation ; and whether this supposition is made 
with reference to a physical event occurring under 
immediate observation (miracle), or to a physical 
event in past time, or to the origin of all physical 
events, it is alike incompatible with any theory that 
seeks to give a purely physical explanation of the 
physical universe as a whole. It is, in short, the 
old story about a stream not being able to rise above 
its source. Physical causation cannot be made to 
supplyits own explanation, and the mere persistence 
of force, even if it were conceded to account for 
particular cases of physical sequence, can give no 
account of the ubiquitous and eternal direction of 
force in the construction and maintenance of univer- 
sal order. 

We are thus, as it were, driven upon the theory 
of Theism as furnishing the only nameable explana- 
tion of this universal order. That is to say, by 
no logical artifice can we escape from the conclu- 



72 Thoughts on Religion 

sion that, as far as we can see, this universal order 
must be regarded as due to some one integrating 
principle ; and that this, so far as we can see, is 
most probably of the nature of mind. At least it 
must be allowed that we can conceive of it under no 
other aspect ; and that if any particular adaptation 
in organic nature is held to be suggestive of such an 
agency, the sum total of all adaptations in the 
universe must be held to be incomparably more 
so. I shall not, however, dwell upon this theme 
since it has been well treated by several modern 
writers, and with special cogency by the Rev. 
Baden Powell. I will merely observe that I do 
not consider it necessary to the display of this 
argument in favour of Theism that we should 
speak of ( natural laws.' It is enough to take 
our stand upon the [broadest] general fact that 
Nature is a system, and that the order observable 
in this system is absolutely universal, eternally en- 
during, and infinitely exact ; while only upon the 
supposition of its being such is our experience 
conceived as possible, or our knowledge conceived 
as attainable. 

Having thus stated as emphatically as I can that 
in my opinion no explanation of natural order can 
be either conceived or named other than that of 
intelligence as the supreme directing cause, I shall 
proceed to two other questions which arise imme- 
diately out of this conclusion. The first of these 
questions is as to the presumable character of this 
supreme Intelligence so far as any data of inference 
upon this point are supplied by our observation of 



Influence of Science upon Religion 73 

Nature ; and the other question is as to the strictly 
formal cogency of any conclusions either with refer- 
ence to the existence or the character of such an 
intelligence 1 . I shall consider these two points 
separately. 

No sooner have we reached the conclusion that 
the only hypothesis whereby the general order of 
Nature admits of being in any degree accounted 
for is that it is due to a cause of a mental kind, 
than we confront the fact that this cause must 
be widely different from anything that we know 
of Mind in ourselves. And we soon discover that 
this difference must be conceived as not merely of 
degree, however great ; but of kind. In other words, 
although we may conclude that the nearest analogue 
of the causa causarum given in experience is the 
human mind, we are bound to acknowledge that 
in all fundamental points the analogy is so remote 
that it becomes a question whether we are really 
very much nearer the truth by entertaining it. 
Thus, for instance, as Mr. Spencer has pointed 
out, our only conception of that which we know 7 
as Mind in ourselves is the conception of a series 
of states of consciousness. But, he continues, ' Put 
a series of states of consciousness as cause and 
the evolving universe as effect, and then endeavour 
to see the last as flowing from the first. I find 
it possible to imagine in some dim way a series 
of states of consciousness serving as antecedent 
to any one of the movements I see going on ; for 

1 [This promise is only partially fulfilled in the penultimate para- 
graph of the essay. — Ed.] 



74 Thoughts on Religion 

my own states of consciousness are often indirectly 
the antecedents to such movements. But how if 
I attempt to think of such a series as antecedent 
to all actions throughout the universe . . . ? If to 
account for this infinitude of physical changes every- 
where going on, " Mind must be conceived as there," 
" under the guise of simple dynamics," then the 
reply is, that, to be so conceived, Mind must be 
divested of all attributes by which it is distinguished ; 
and that, when thus divested of its distinguishing 
attributes the conception disappears — the word 
Mind stands for a blank.' 

Moreover, 'How is the "originating Mind" to 
be thought of as having states produced by 
things objective to it, as discriminating among 
these states, and classing them as like and unlike ; 
and as preferring one objective result to another? 1 ' 

Hence, without continuing this line of argument, 
which it would not be difficult to trace through 
every constituent branch of human psychology, 
we may take it as unquestionable that, if there 
is a Divine Mind, it must differ so essentially from 
the human mind, that it becomes illogical to de- 
signate the two by the same name : the attributes 
of eternity and ubiquity are in themselves enough 
to place such a Mind in a category sui generis, 
wholly different from anything which the analogy 
furnished by our own mind enables us even 
dimly to conceive. And this, of course, is no 
more than theologians admit. God's thoughts are 

1 Essays, vol. iii. p, 246 et seq. The whole passage ought to be 
consulted, being too long to quote here. 



Influence of Science upon Religion 75 

above our thoughts, and a God who would be 
comprehensible to our intelligence would be no 
God at all, they say. Which may be true 
enough, only we must remember that in what- 
ever measure we are thus precluded from under- 
standing the Divine Mind, in that measure are we 
precluded from founding any conclusions as to its 
nature upon analogies furnished by the human 
mind. The theory ceases to be anthropomorphic : it 
ceases to be even * anthropopsychic ' : it is affiliated 
with the conception of mind only in virtue of the 
one fact that it serves to give the best provisional 
account of the order of Nature, by supposing an 
infinite extension of some of the faculties of the 
human mind, with a concurrent obliteration of all 
the essential conditions under which alone these 
faculties are known to exist. Obviously of such 
a Mind as this no predication is logically possible. 
If such a Mind exists, it is not conceivable as 
existing, and we are precluded from assigning to it 
any attributes. 

Thus much on general grounds. Descending 
now to matters of more detail, let us assume with 
the natural theologians that such a Mind does exist, 
that it so far resembles the human mind as to 
be a conscious, personal intelligence, and that the 
care of such a Mind is over all its works. Even 
upon the grounds of this supposition we meet with 
a number of large and general facts which indicate 
that this Mind ought still to be regarded as ap- 
parently very unlike its 'image' in the mind of 
man. I will not here dwell upon the argument of 



76 Thoughts on Religion 

seeming waste and purposeless action in Nature, 
because I think that this may be fairly met by 
the ulterior argument already drawn from Nature 
as a whole— viz. that as a whole, Nature is a 
cosmos, and therefore that what to us appears 
wasteful and purposeless in matters of detail may 
not be so in relation to the scheme of things 
as a whole. But I am doubtful whether this 
ulterior argument can fairly be adduced to meet 
the apparent absence in Nature of that which in 
man we term morality. For in the human mind 
the sense of right and wrong — with all its 
accompanying or constituting emotions of love, 
sympathy, justice, &c. — is so important a factor, 
that however greatly we may imagine the in- 
tellectual side of the human mind to be extended, 
we can scarcely imagine that the moral side could 
ever become so apparently eclipsed as to end in the 
authorship of such a work as we find in terrestrial 
nature. It is useless to hide our eyes to the state 
of matters which meets us here. Most of the in- 
stances of special design which are relied upon by 
the natural theologian to prove the intelligent 
nature of the First Cause, have as their end or 
object the infliction of painful death or the escape 
from remorseless enemies ; and so far the argument 
in favour of the intelligent nature of the First Cause 
is an argument against its morality. Again, even 
if we quit the narrower basis on which teleological 
argument has rested in the past, and stand that 
argument upon the broader ground of Nature as 
a whole, it scarcely becomes less incompatible with 



Influence of Science upon Religion 77 

any inference to the morality of that Cause, seeing 
that the facts to which I have alluded are not merely 
occasional and, as it were, outweighed by contrary 
facts of a more general kind, but manifestly con- 
stitute the leading feature of the scheme of organic 
nature as a whole : or, if this were held to be 
questionable, it could only follow that we are not 
entitled to infer that there is any such scheme 
at all. 

Nature, as red in tooth and claw with ravin, is 
thus without question a large and general fact that 
must be considered by any theory of teleology 
which can be propounded. I do not think that 
this aspect of the matter could be conveyed in 
stronger terms than it is by ' Physicus 1 ,' whom 
I shall therefore quote : — 

; Supposing the Deity to be, what Professor Flint 
maintains that he is — viz. omnipotent, and there 
can be no inference more transparent than that 
such wholesale suffering, for whatever ends de- 
signed, exhibits an incalculably greater deficiency 
of beneficence in the divine character than that 
which we know in any, the very worst, of human 
characters. For let us pause for one moment to 
think of what suffering in Nature means. Some 
hundreds of millions of years ago some millions 
of millions of animals must be supposed to have 
become sentient. Since that time till the present, 
there must have been millions and millions of 
generations of millions and millions of individuals. 

1 In an essay on Prof. Flint's Theism, appended to the Candid 
Examination. 



78 Thoughts on Religion 

And throughout all this period of incalculable 
duration, this inconceivable host of sentient organ- 
isms have been in a state of unceasing battle, 
dread, ravin, pain. Looking to the outcome, we 
find that more than one half of the species which 
have survived the ceaseless struggle are parasitic 
in their habits, lower and insentient forms of life 
feasting on higher and sentient forms ; we find 
teeth and talons whetted for slaughter, hooks and 
suckers moulded for torment — everywhere a reign 
of terror, hunger, sickness, with oozing blood and 
quivering limbs, with gasping breath and eyes 
of innocence that dimly close in deaths of cruel 
torture ! Is it said that there are compensating 
enjoyments ? I care not to strike the balance ; 
the enjoyments I plainly perceive to be as physically 
necessary as the pains, and this whether or not 
evolution is due to design. . . . Am I told that 
I am not competent to judge the purposes of the 
Almighty? I answer that if there are purposes, 
I am able to judge of them so far as I can see ; 
and if I am expected to judge of His purposes 
when they appear to be beneficent, I am in con- 
sistency obliged also to judge of them when they 
appear to be malevolent. And it can be no possible 
extenuation of the latter to point to the " final 
result " as "order and beauty,'' so long as the 
means adopted by the " Omnipotent Designer" are 
known to have been so [terrible]. All that we 
could legitimately assert in this case would be that, 
so far as observation can extend, " He cares for 
animal perfection" to the exclusion of "animal 



Influence of Science upon Religion 79 

enjoyment," and even to the total disregard of 
animal suffering. But to assert this would merely 
be to deny beneficence as an attribute of God V 

The reasoning here appears as unassailable as 
it is obvious. If, as the writer goes on to say, we 
see a rabbit panting in the iron jaws of a spring 
trap, and in consequence abhor the devilish nature 
of the being who, with full powers of realizing what 
pain means, can deliberately employ his whole 
faculties of invention in contriving a thing so 
hideously cruel ; what are we to think of a Being 
who, w 7 ith yet higher faculties of thought and 
knowledge, and with an unlimited choice of means 
to secure His ends, has contrived untold thousands 
of mechanisms no less diabolical ? In short, so 
far as Nature can teach us, or ' observation can 
extend, 5 it does appear that the scheme, if it is 
a scheme, is the product of a Mind which differs 
from the more highly evolved type of human mind 
in that it is immensely more intellectual without 
being nearly so moral. And the same thing is 
indicated by the rough and indiscriminate manner 
in which justice is allotted — even if it can be said 
to be allotted at all. When we contrast the 
certainty and rigour with which any offence against 
' physical law ' is punished by Nature (no matter 
though the sin be but one of ignorance), with 
the extreme uncertainty and laxity with which 
she meets any offence against c moral law/ we are 
constrained to feel that the system of legislation 
(if we may so term it) is conspicuously different 

1 A Candid Examination of Theism, pp. 171-2. 



80 Thoughts on Religion 

from that which would have been devised by any 
intelligence which in any sense could be called 
c anthropopsychic/ 

The only answer to these difficulties open to 
the natural theologian is that which is drawn from 
the constitution of the human mind. It is argued 
that the fact of this mind having so large an 
ingredient of morality in its constitution may be 
taken as proof that its originating source is like- 
wise of a moral character. This argument, however, 
appears to me of a questionable character, seeing 
that, for anything we can tell to the contrary, the 
moral sense may have. been given to, or developed 
in, man simply on account of its utility to the 
species — just in the same way as teeth in the shark 
or poison in the snake. If so, the occurrence of 
the moral sense in man would merely furnish one 
other instance of the intellectual, as distinguished 
from the moral, nature of God ; and there seems 
to be in itself no reason why we should take any 
other view. The mere fact that to us the moral 
sense seems such a great and holy thing, is doubt- 
less (under any view) owing to its importance to 
the well-being of our species. In itself, or as it 
appears to other possible beings intellectual like 
ourselves, but existing under unlike conditions, 
the moral sense of man may be regarded as of no 
more significance than the social instincts of bees. 
More particularly may this consideration apply 
to the case of a Mind existing, according to the 
theological theory of things, wholly beyond the 
pale of anything analogous to those social relations 



Influence of Science upon Religion 81 

out of which, according to the scientific theory of 
evolution, the moral sense has been developed in 
ourselves *. 

The truth is that in this matter natural theo- 
logians begin by assuming that the First Cause, 
if intelligent, must be moral ; and then they are 
blinded to the strictly logical weakness of the 
argument whereby they endeavour to sustain their 
assumption. For aught that we can tell to the 
contrary, it may be quite as ' anthropomorphic ' 
a notion to attribute morality to God as it would 
be to attribute those capacities for sensuous en- 
joyment with which the Greeks endowed their 
divinities. The Deity may be as high above the 
one as the other — or rather perhaps we may say as 
much external to the one as to the other. Without 
being supra-moral, and still less immoral, He may 
be un-moral : our ideas of morality may have no 
meaning as applied to Him. 

But if we go thus far in one direction, I think, 
per contra, it must in consistency be allowed that 
the argument from the constitution of the human 
mind acquires more weight when it is shifted from 
the moral sense to the religious instincts. For, on 
the one hand, these instincts are not of such obvious 

1 [I have, as Editor, resisted a temptation to intervene in the above 
argument. But I think I may intervene on a matter of fact, and 
point out that ' according to the theological theory of things/ i. e. 
according to the Trinitarian doctrine, God's Nature consists in 
what is strictly ' analogous to social relations/ and He not merely 
exhibits in His creation, but Himself is Love. See, on the 
subject, especially, R. H. Hutton's essay on the Incarnation, in his 
Theological Essays (Macmillan). — Ed.] 

F 



82 Thoughts on Religion 

use to the species as are those of morality ; and, 
on the other hand, while they are unquestionably 
very general, very persistent, and very powerful, 
they do not appear to serve any ' end ' or ' purpose ' 
in the scheme of things, unless we accept the theory 
which is given of them by those in whom they are 
most strongly developed. Here I think we have 
an argument of legitimate force, although it does 
not appear that such was the opinion entertained 
of it by Mill. I think the argument is of legiti- 
mate force, because if the religious instincts of the 
human race point to no reality as their object, they 
are out of analogy with all other instinctive endow- 
ments. Elsewhere in the animal kingdom we 
never meet with such a thing as an instinct pointing 
aimlessly, and therefore the fact of man being, 
as it is said, 'a religious animal' — i.e. presenting 
a class of feelings of a peculiar nature directed to 
particular ends, and most akin to, if not identical 
with, true instinct — is so far, in my opinion, a legiti- 
mate argument in favour of the reality of some 
object towards which the religious side of this 
animal's nature is directed. And I do not think 
that this argument is invalidated by such facts as 
that widely different intellectual conceptions touch- 
ing the character of this object are entertained 
by different races of mankind ; that the force of 
the religious instincts differs greatly in different 
individuals even of the same race; that these 
instincts admit of being greatly modified by educa- 
tion ; that they would probably fail to be developed 
in any individual without at least so much education 



Influence of Science upon Religion 83 

as is required to furnish the needful intellectual 
conceptions on which they are founded ; or that 
we may not improbably trace their origin, as 
Mr. Spencer traces it, to a primitive mode of inter- 
preting dreams. For even in view of all these 
considerations the fact remains that these instincts 
exist, and therefore, like all other instincts, may be 
supposed to have a definite meaning, even though, 
like all other instincts, they may be supposed to 
have had a natural cause, which both in the in- 
dividual and in the race requires, as in the natural 
development of all other instincts, the natural 
conditions for its occurrence to be supplied. In 
a word, if animal instincts generally, like organic 
structures or inorganic systems, are held to 
betoken purpose, the religious nature of man 
would stand out as an anomaly in the general 
scheme of things if it alone were purposeless. 
Hence we have here what seems to me a valid 
inference, so far as it goes, to the effect that, if 
the general order of Nature is due to Mind, the 
character of that Mind is such as it is conceived to 
be by the most highly developed form of religion. 
A conclusion which is no doubt the opposite of 
that which we reached by contemplating the phe- 
nomena of biology ; and a contradiction which can 
only be overcome by supposing, either that Nature 
conceals God, while man reveals Him, or that 
Nature reveals God while man misrepresents Him. 
There is still one other fact of a very wide and 
general kind presented by Nature, which, if the 
order of Nature is taken to be the expression of 

F 2 



84 Thoughts on Religion 

intelligent purpose, ought in my opinion to be 
regarded as of great weight in furnishing evidence 
upon the ethical quality of that purpose. It is a 
fact which, so far as I know, has not been considered 
by any other writer ; but from its being one of 
the most general of all the facts relating to the 
sentient creation, and from its admitting of no one 
single exception, I feel that I am not able too 
strongly to emphasize its argumentative import- 
ance. This fact is, as I have stated it on a former 
occasion, ' that amid all the millions of mechanisms 
and instincts in the animal kingdom, there is no 
one instance of a mechanism or instinct occurring 
in one species for the exclusive benefit of another 
species, although there are a few cases in which 
a mechanism or instinct that is of benefit to its 
possessor has come also to be utilized by other 
species. Now, on the beneficent design theory 
it is impossible to explain why, when all the 
mechanisms in the same species are invariably 
correlated for the benefit of that species, there 
should never be any such correlation between 
mechanisms in different species, or why the same 
remark should apply to instincts. For how mag- 
nificent a display of Divine beneficence would 
organic nature have afforded, if all, or even some, 
species had been so inter-related as to minister 
to each other's necessities. Organic species might 
then have been likened to a countless multitude 
of voices all singing in one harmonious psalm 
of praise. But, as it is, we see no vestige of such 
co-ordination ; every species is for itself, and for 



Influence of Science upon Religion 85 

itself alone — an outcome of the always and every- 
where fiercely raging struggle for life V 

The large and general fact thus stated constitutes, 
in my opinion, the strongest of all arguments in 
favour of Mr. Darwin's theory of natural selection, 
and therefore we can see the probable reason why 
it is what it is, so far as the question of its physical 
causation is concerned. But where the question is, 
Supposing the physical causation ultimately due to 
Mind, what are we to infer concerning the character 
of the Mind which has adopted this method of 
causation? — then we again reach the answer that, 
so far as we can judge from a conscientious ex- 
amination of these facts, this Mind does not show 
that it is of a nature which in man we should call 
moral. Of course behind the physical appearances 
there may be a moral justification, so that from 
these appearances we are not entitled to say more 
than that from the fact of its having chosen 
a method of physical causation leading to these 
results, it has presented to us the appearance, as 
before observed, of caring for animal perfection 
to the exclusion of animal enjoyment, and even 
to the total disregard of animal suffering. 

In conclusion, it is of importance to insist upon 
a truth which in discussions of this kind is too often 
disregarded — viz. that all our reasonings being of 
a character relative to our knowledge, our in- 
ferences are uncertain in a degree proportionate 
to the extent of our ignorance ; and that as with 
reference to the topics which we have been con- 

1 Scientific Evidences of Organic EvoIutio7t, pp. 76-7. 



86 Thoughts on Religion 

sidering our ignorance is of immeasurable extent, 
any conclusions that we may have formed are. as 
Bishop Butler would say, ' infinitely precarious.' 
Or, as I have previously presented this formal 
aspect of the matter while discussing the teleological 
argument with Professor Asa Gray, — ' I suppose it 
will be admitted that the validity of an inference 
depends upon the number, the importance, and 
the definiteness of the things or ratios known, as 
compared with the number, importance, and 
definiteness of the things or ratios unknown, but 
inferred. If so, we should be logically cautious in 
drawing inferences from the natural to the super- 
natural : for although we have the entire sphere of 
experience from which to draw an inference, we 
are unable to gauge the probability of the inference 
when drawn- — the unknown ratios being confessedly 
of unknown number, importance, and degree of 
definiteness : the whole orbit of human knowledge 
is insufficient to obtain a parallax whereby to 
institute the required measurements or to deter- 
mine the proportion between the terms known and 
the terms unknown. Otherwise phrased, we may 
say — as our knowledge of a part is to our 
knowledge of a whole, so is our inference from 
that part to the reality of that whole. Who, 
therefore, can say, even upon the hypothesis of 
Theism, that our inferences or "idea of design" 
would have any meaning if applied to the " All- 
Upholder," whose thoughts are not as our 
thoughts ? l ' And of course, mutatis mutandis, the 

1 Nature, April 5, 18 "S3. 



Influence of Science upon Religion 87 

same remarks apply to all inferences having a nega- 
tive tendency. 

As an outcome of the whole of this discussion, 
then, I think it appears that the influence of Science 
upon Natural Religion has been uniformly of a 
destructive character. Step by step it has driven 
back the apparent evidence of direct or special 
design in Nature, until now this evidence resides 
exclusively in the one great and general fact that 
Nature as a whole is a Cosmos. Further than this 
it is obviously impossible that the destructive in- 
fluence of Science can extend, because Science can 
only exist upon the basis of this fact. But when 
we allow that this great and universal fact — which 
but for the effects of unremitting familiarity could 
scarcely fail to be intellectually overwhelming — 
does betoken mental agency in Nature, we imme- 
diately find it impossible to determine the probable 
character of such a mind, even supposing that it 
exists. We cannot conceive of it as presenting 
any one of the qualities which essentially charac- 
terize what we know as mind in ourselves ; and 
therefore the word Mind., as applied to the supposed 
agency, stands for a blank. Further, even if we 
disregard this difficulty, and assume that in some 
way or other incomprehensible to us a Mind does 
exist as far transcending the human mind as the 
human mind transcends mechanical motion ; still 
we are met by some very large and general facts 
in Nature which seem strongly to indicate that 
this Mind, if it exists, is either deficient in, or 
wholly destitute of, that class of feelings which 



88 Thoughts on Religion 

in man we term moral ; while, on the other hand, 
the religious aspirations of man himself may be 
taken to indicate the opposite conclusion. And, 
lastly, with reference to the whole course of such 
reasonings, we have seen that any degree of 
measurable probabilit}^ as attaching to the con- 
clusions, is unattainable. From all which it appears 
that Natural Religion at the present time can 
only be regarded as a system full of intellectual 
contradictions and moral perplexities ; so that if 
we go to her with these greatest of all questions : 
' Is there knowledge with the Most High ? ' ' Shall 
not the Judge of all the earth do right ?' the only 
clear answer which we receive is the one that 
comes back to us from the depths of our own 
heart — ' When I thought upon this it was too 
painful for me/ 



PART II. 



Introductory Note by the Editor. 

LITTLE more requires to be said by way of 
introduction to the Notes which are all that 
George Romanes was able to write of a work that 
was to have been entitled A Candid Examina- 
tion of Religion. What little does require to be 
said must be by way of bridging the interval of 
thought which exists between the Essays which 
have just preceded and the Notes which represent 
more nearly his final phase of mind. 

The most anti-theistic feature in the Essays 
is the stress laid in them on the evidence which 
Nature supplies, or is supposed to supply, antago- 
nistic to the belief in the goodness of God. 

On this mysterious and perplexing subject George 
Romanes appears to have had more to say but did 
not live to say it \ We may notice however that 

1 See below p. 142, and note. I find also the following note of a 
date subsequent to 1889. 'It is a fact that pessimism is illogical, 
simply because we are inadequate judges of the world, and pessimism 
would therefore be opposed to agnosticism. We may know that 
there is something out of joint between the world and ourselves; but 
we cannot know how far this is the fault of the world or of ourselves.' 



92 Thoughts on Religion 

in 1889, in a paper read before the Aristotelian 
Society, on 'the Evidence of Design in Nature 1 ,' 
he appears to allow more weight than before to 
the argument that the method of physical de- 
velopment must be judged in the light of its 
result. This paper was part of a Symposium. 
Mr. S. Alexander has argued in a previous paper 
against the hypothesis of c design ' in Nature on 
the ground that ' the fair order of Nature is only 
acquired by a wholesale waste and sacrifice.' 
This argument w r as developed by pointing to the 
obvious ' mal-adjustments,' ' aimless destructions,' 
&c, which characterize the processes of Nature. 
But these, Romanes replies, necessarily belong to 
the process considered as one of ' natural selec- 
tion.' The question is only: Is such a process 
per se incompatible with the hypothesis of design ? 
And he replies in the negative. 

c " The fair order of Nature is only acquired by 
a wholesale waste and sacrifice." Granted. But 
if the " wholesale waste and sacrifice," as ante- 
cedent, leads to a " fair order of Nature " as its 
consequent, how can it be said that the " wholesale 
waste and sacrifice " has been a failure ? Or 
how can it be said that, in point of fact, there 
has been a waste, or has been a sacrifice ? Clearly 

1 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Williams & Norgate), 
vol. i. no. 3, pp. 72, 73. 



Introductory Note 93 

such things can only be said when our point 
of view is restricted to the means (i. e. the whole- 
sale destruction of the less fit) ; not when we 
extend our view to what, even within the 
limits of human observation, is unquestionably 
the end (i.e. the causal result in an ever im- 
proving world of types). A candidate who is 
plucked in a Civil Service examination because 
he happens to be one of the less fitted to pass, 
is no doubt an instance of failure so far as his 
own career is concerned ; but it does not there- 
fore follow that the system of examination is 
a failure in its final end of securing the best 
men for the Civil Service. And the fact that 
the general outcome of all the individual failures 
in Nature is that of securing what Mr. Alexander 
calls "the fair order of Nature," is assuredly evi- 
dence that the modus operandi has not been a failure 
in relation to what, if there be any Design in 
Nature at all. must be regarded as the higher 
purpose of such Design. Therefore, cases of in- 
dividual or otherwise relative failure cannot be 
quoted as evidence against the hypothesis of there 
being such Design. The fact that the general 
system of natural causation has for its eventual 
result " a fair order of Nature," cannot of itself 
be a fact inimical to the hypothesis of Design in 
Nature, even though it be true that such causation 
entails the continual elimination of the less efficient 
types. 

'To the best of my judgement, then, this argu- 
ment from failure, random trial, blind blundering, or 



94 Thoughts on Religion 

in whatever other terminology the argument may 
be presented, is only valid as against the theory 
of what Mr. Alexander alludes to as a " Carpenter- 
God/' i.e. that if there be Design in Nature at 
all, it must everywhere be special Design ; so that 
the evidence of it may as well be tested by any 
given minute fragment of Nature — such as one 
individual organism or class of organisms — as by 
having regard to the whole Cosmos. The evidence 
of Design in this sense I fully allow has been 
totally destroyed by the proof of natural selection. 
But such destruction has only brought into clearer 
relief the much larger question that rises behind, 
viz. as before phrased, Is there anything about 
the method of natural causation, considered as 
a whole, that is inimical to the theory of Design 
in Nature, considered as a whole ? ' 



It is true that this argument does not bear 
directly upon the character of the God whose 
'design 5 Nature exhibits: but indirectly it does 1 . 
For instance, such an argument as that found 
above (on p. 79 : 'we see a rabbit, &c.') seems to 
be only valid on the postulate here described as 
that of the ' Carpenter-God.' 

1 I ought also to mention that Romanes on the Sunday before 
his death expressed to me verbally his entire agreement with the 
argument of Professor Knight's Aspects of Theism (Macmillan, 1893); 
in which on this subject see pp. 184-186, ' A larger good is evolved 
through the winnowing process by which physical nature casts its 
weaker products aside,' &c. 



Introductory Note 95 

It is also probable that Romanes felt the diffi- 
culty arising from the cruelty of nature less, as he 
was led to dwell more on humanity as the most 
important part of nature, and perceived the function 
of suffering in the economy of human life (pp. 142, 
154) : and also as he became more impressed with 
the positive evidences for Christianity as at once the 
religion of sorrow and the revelation of God as 
Love (pp. 163, ff.). The Christian Faith supplies 
believers not only with an argument against pes- 
simism from general results, but also with such an 
insight into the Divine character and method as 
enables them at least to bear hopefully the awful 
perplexities which arise from the spectacle of 
individuals suffering. 

In the last year or two of his life he read very 
attentively a great number of books on ' Christian 
Evidences/ from Pascal's Pensees downwards, and 
studied carefully the appearance of * plan ' in the 
Biblical Revelation considered as a whole. The 
fact of this study appears in fragmentary remarks, 
indices and references, which George Romanes left 
behind him in note-books. The results of it will 
not be unapparent in the following Notes, which, 
I need to remind my readers, are, in spite of their 
small bulk, the sole reason for the existence of this 
volume. 



96 Thoughts on Religion 

In reading these I can hardly conceive any one 
not being possessed with a profound regret that 
the author was not allowed to complete his work. 
And it is only fair to ask every reader of the 
following pages to remember that he is reading, 
in the main, incomplete notes and not finished 
work. This will account for a great deal that 
may seem sketchy and unsatisfactory in the treat- 
ment of different points, and also for repetitions and 
traces of inconsistency. But I can hardly think 
any one can read these notes to the end without 
agreeing with me that if I had withheld them from 
publication, the world would have lost the witness 
of a mind, both able and profoundly sincere, feeling 
after God and finding Him. 

C. G. 



NOTES FOR A WORK ON 
A CANDID EXAMINATION OF RELIGION. 

By METAPHYSICUS. 



Proposed Mottoes. 

1 1 quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there 
is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and dimmed, 
is by this purified and re-illumined ; and is more precious far than 
ten thousand bodily eyes, for by this alone is truth seen. Now 
there are two classes of persons, one class who will agree with you 
and will take your words as a revelation ; another class who have 
no understanding of them and to whom they will naturally be as 
idle tales. 

1 And you had better decide at once with which of the two you 
are arguing ; or, perhaps, you will say with neither, and that your 
chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improvement ; at 
the same time not grudging to either any benefit which they may 
derive.' — Plato. 

1 If we would reprove with success, and show another his mistake, 
we must see from what side he views the matter, for on that side it 
is generally true : and, admitting this truth, show him the side on 
which it is false.' — Pascal. 



G 



§ i. Introductory. 

Many years ago I published in Messrs. Trlib- 
ner's ' Philosophical Series/ a short treatise entitled 
A Candid Examination of Theism by ' Physicus/ 
Although the book made some stir at the time, 
and has since exhibited a vitality never anticipated 
by its author, the secret of its authorship has been 
well preserved 1 . This secret it is my intention, 
if possible, still to preserve ; but as it is desirable 
(on several accounts which will become apparent 
in the following pages) to avow identity of author- 
ship, the present essay appears under the same 
pseudonym 2 as its predecessor. The reason why 
the first essay appeared anonymously is truthfully 
stated in the preface thereof, viz. in order that the 

1 The first edition, which was published in 1878, was rapidly 
exhausted, but, as my object in publishing was solely that of 
soliciting criticism for my own benefit, I arranged with the pub- 
lishers not to issue any further edition. The work has therefore 
been out of print for many years. 

[This ' arrangement ' was however not actually made, or at least 
was unknown to the present publishing firm of Kegan Paul, Trench, 
Trtibner & Co. Thus a new edition of the book was published in 
1892, to the author's surprise. — Ed.] 

2 [Or rather it was intended that it should appear under the 
pseudonym of ' Metaphysicus.' — Ed.] 



A Candid Examination of Religion 99 

reasoning should be judged on its own merits, 
without the bias which is apt to arise on the part 
of a reader from a knowledge of the authority — 
or absence of authority — on the part of a writer. 
This reason, in my opinion, still holds good as 
regards A Candid Examination of Theism, and 
applies in equal measure to the present sequel in 
A Candid Examination of Religion. 

It will be shown that in many respects the 
negative conclusions reached in the former essay 
have been greatly modified by the results of 
maturer thought as now presented in the second. 
Therefore it seems desirable to state at the outset 
that, as far as I am capable of judging, the modi- 
fications in question have not been due in any 
measure to influence from without. They appear 
to have been due exclusively to the results of 
my own further thought, as briefly set out in the 
following pages, with no indebtedness to private 
friends and but little to published utterances in the 
form of books, &c. Nevertheless, no very original 
ideas are here presented. Indeed, I suppose it 
would nowadays be impossible to present any idea 
touching religion, which has not at some time 
or another been presented previously. Still much 
may be done in the furthering of one's thought 
by changing points of view, selecting and arranging 
ideas already more or less familiar, so that they 
may be built into new combinations ; and this, 
I think, I have in no small degree accomplished 
as regards the microcosm of my own mind. But 
I state this much only for the sake of adding 

G 2 



IOO 



Thoughts on Religion 



a confession that, as far as introspection can carry 
one, it does not appear to me that the modifications 
which my views have undergone since the pub- 
lication of my previous Candid Examination are 
due so much to purely logical processes of the 
intellect, as to the sub-conscious (and therefore 
more or less unanalyzable) influences due to the 
ripening experience of life. The extent to which 
this is true [i. e. the extent to which experience 
modifies logic] l is seldom, if ever, realized, although 
it is practically exemplified every day by the 
sobering caution w T hich advancing age exercises 
upon the mind. Not so much by any above-board 
play of syllogism as by some underhand cheating 
of consciousness, do the accumulating experiences 
of life and of thought slowly enrich the judgement. 
And this, one need hardly say, is especially true 
in such regions of thought as present the most 
tenuous media for the progress of thought by the 
comparatively clumsy means of syllogistic loco- 
motion. For the further we ascend from the solid 
ground of verification, the less confidence should 
we place in our wings of speculation, while the 
more do we find the practical wisdom of such 
intellectual caution, or distrust of ratiocination, 
as can be given only by experience. There- 
fore, most of all is this the case in those de- 
partments of thought which are furthest from 
the region of our sensuous life — viz. metaphysics 

1 [Words in square brackets have been added by me. But I have 
not introduced the brackets when I have simply inserted single 
unimportant words obviously necessary for the sense. — Ed.] 



A Candid Examination of Religion 101 

and religion. And, as a matter of fact, it is just 
in these departments of thought that we find 
the rashness of youth most amenable to the 
discipline in question by the experience of age. 

However, in spite of this confession, I have no 
doubt that even in the matter of pure and conscious 
reason further thought has enabled me to detect 
serious errors, or rather oversights, in the very 
foundations of my Candid Examination of Theism. 
I still think, indeed, that from the premises there 
laid down the conclusions result in due logical 
sequence, so that, as a matter of mere ratiocination, 
I am not likely ever to detect any serious flaws, 
especially as this has not been done by anybody 
else during the many years of its existence. But I 
now clearly perceive two wellnigh fatal oversights 
which I then committed. The first was undue 
confidence in merely syllogistic conclusions, even 
when derived from sound premises, in regions 
of such high abstraction. The second was, in 
not being sufficiently careful in examining the 
foundations of my criticism, i. e. the validity of 
its premises. I will here briefly consider these 
two points separately, 

As regards the first point, never was any one 
more arrogant in his claims for pure reason than I 
was — more arrogant in spirit though not in letter, 
this being due to contact with science ; without ever 
considering how opposed to reason itself is the 
unexpressed assumption of my earlier argument 
as to God Himself, as if His existence were a 
merely physical problem to be solved by man's 



102 



Thoughts on Religion 



alone, without reference to his other and 
higher faculties 1 . 

The second point is of still more importance, 
because so seldom, if ever, recognized. 

At the time of writing the Candid Examination 
I perceived clearly how the whole question of Theism 
from the side of reason turned on the question as 
to the nature of natural causation. My theory of 
natural causation obeyed the Law of Parsimony, 
resolving all into Being as such ; but, on the other 
hand, it erred in not considering whether ' higher 
causes ' are not ' necessary ' to account for spiritual 
facts — i.e. whether the ultimate Being must not 
be at least as high as the intellectual and spiritual 
nature of man, i. e. higher than anything merely 
physical or mechanical. The supposition that it 
must does not violate the Law of Parsimony. 

Pure agnostics ought to investigate the religious 
consciousness of Christians as a phenomenon which 
may possibly be what Christians themselves believe 
it to be, i. e. of Divine origin. And this may be 
done without entering into any question as to the 
objective validity of Christian dogmas. The meta- 
physics of Christianity may be all false in fact, and 
yet the spirit of Christianity may be true in sub- 
stance — i.e. it may be the highest 'good gift from 
above' as yet given to man. 



1 [See p. 29, quotation from Preface of 'Physicus.' The state of 
mind expressed in the above Note is a return to the earlier frame 
of mind of the Burney Essay, e.g. p. 20. That essay was fuU 
of the thought that Christian evidences are very manifold and 
largely c extra-scientific' — Ed.] 






A Candid Examination of Religion 103 

My present object, then, like that of Socrates, 
is not to impart any philosophical system, or even 
positive knowledge, but a frame of mind, what 
I may term, pure agnosticism, as distinguished 
from what is commonly so called. 






§ 2. Definition of Terms and Purpose of 
this Treatise. 



[To understand George Romanes' mind close 
attention must be paid to the following section. 
Also to the fact, not explicitly noticed by him, 
that he uses the word ' reason ' (see p. i J %) in 
a sense closely resembling that in which Mr. Kidd 
has recently used it in his Social Evolution. He 
uses it, that is, in a restricted sense as equivalent 
to the process of scientific ratiocination. His main 
position is therefore this : Scientific ratiocination 
cannot find adequate grounds for belief in God. 
But the pure agnostic must recognize that God 
may have revealed Himself by other means than 
that of scientific ratiocination. As religion is for the 
whole man, so all human faculties may be required 
to seek after God and find Him — emotions and ex- 
periences of an extra- c rational ' kind. The i pure 
agnostic' must be prepared to welcome evidence of 
all sorts. — Ed.] 



A Candid Examination of Religion 105 

It is desirable to be clear at the outset as to 
the meaning which I shall throughout attach to 
certain terms and phrases. 



Theism. 

It will frequently be said, ' on the theory of 
Theism,' 'supposing Theism true,' &c. By such 
phrase my meaning will always be equivalent to — 
' supposing, for the sake of argument, that the 
nearest approach which the human mind can make 
to a true notion of the ens realissimum, is that 
of an inconceivably magnified image of itself at 
its best.' 

Christianity. 

Similarly, when it is said, ' supposing Christianity 
true/ what will be meant is — * supposing for the sake 
of argument, that the Christian system as a whole, 
from its earliest dawn in Judaism, to the phase 
of its development at the present time, is the 
highest revelation of Himself which a personal 
Deity has vouchsafed to mankind.' This I intend 
to signify an attitude of pure agnosticism as 
regards any particular dogma of Christianity — even 
that of the Incarnation. 

Should it be said that by holding in suspense 
any distinctive dogma of Christianity, I am not 
considering Christianity at all, I reply, Not so ; 
I am not writing a theological, but a philosophical 
treatise, and shall consider Christianity merely as 



106 Thoughts on Religion 

one of many religions, though, of course, the 
latest, &c. Thus considered, Christianity takes its 
place as the highest manifestation of evolution in 
this department of the human mind ; but I am not 
concerned even with so important an ecclesiastical 
dogma as that of the Incarnation of God in Christ. 
As far as this treatise has to go, that dogma 
may or may not be true. The important question 
for us is, Has God spoken through the medium of 
our religious instincts? And although this will 
necessarily involve the question whether or how 
far in the case of Christianity there is objective 
evidence of His having spoken by the mouth of 
holy men [of the Old Testament] which have been 
since the world began, such will be the case only 
because it is a question of objective evidence 
whether or how far the religious instincts of these 
men, or this race of men, have been so much superior 
to those of other men, or races of men, as to have 
enabled them to predict future events of a religious 
character. And whether or not in these latter 
days God has spoken by His own Son is not 
a question for us, further than to investigate the 
higher class of religious phenomena which un- 
questionably have been present in the advent and 
person of Jesus. The question whether Jesus was 
the Son of God, is, logically speaking, a question 
of ontology, which, qua pure agnostics, we are 
logically forbidden to touch. 

But elsewhere I ought to show that, from my 
point of view as to the fundamental question being 
whether God has spoken at all through the 



A Candid Examination of Religion 107 

religious instincts of mankind, it may very well 
be that Christ was not God, and yet that He gave 
the highest revelation of God. If the l first Man ' 
was allegorical, why not the ' second ' ? It is, 
indeed, an historical fact that the ' second Man ' 
existed, but so likewise may the ' first/ And, 
as regards the ' personal claims ' of Christ, all 
that He said is not incompatible with His having 
been Gabriel, and His Holy Ghost, Michael 1 . Or 
He may have been a man deceived as to His 
own personality, and yet the vehicle of highest 
inspiration. 

Religion. 

By the term * religion,' I shall mean any theory 
of personal agency in the universe, belief in which 
is strong enough in any degree to influence conduct. 
No term has been used more loosely of late years, 
or in a greater variety of meanings. Of course 
anybody may use it in any sense he pleases, 
provided he defines exactly in what sense he 
does so. The above seems to be most in accordance 
with traditional usage. 



Agnosticism ' pure ' and c impure! 

The modern and highly convenient term ' Agnos- 
ticism/ is used in two very different senses. By 

1 [I.e. supernatural but not strictly Divine Persons. Surely, 
however, the proposition is not maintainable. — Ed.] 



io8 Thoughts on Religion 

its originator, Professor Huxley, it was coined to 
signify an attitude of reasoned ignorance touching 
everything that lies beyond the sphere of sense- 
perception — a professed inability to found valid 
belief on any other basis. It is in this its original 
sense — and also, in my opinion, its only philoso- 
phically justifiable sense — that I shall understand 
the term. But the other, and perhaps more popular 
sense in which the word is now employed, is as 
the correlative of Mr. H. Spencer's doctrine of the 
Unknowable, 

This latter term is philosophically erroneous, 
implying important negative knowledge that if 
there be a God we know this much about Him — 
that He cannot reveal Himself to man 1 . Pure 
agnosticism is as defined by Huxley. 

Of all the many scientific men whom I have 
known, the most pure in his agnosticism — not only 
in profession but in spirit and conduct — was 
Darwin. (What he says in his autobiography 
about Christianity 2 shows no profundity of thought 
in the direction of philosophy or religion. His 
mind was too purely inductive for this. But, on 
this very account, it is the more remarkable that 
his rejection of Christianity was due, not to any 
a priori bias against the creed on grounds of 
reason as absurd, but solely on the ground of an 
apparent moral objection a posteriori' 6 .) Faraday 

1 [This is another instance of recurrence to an earlier thought ; see 
Burney Essay, p. 25. — Ed.] 

2 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, i. 308. 

3 [See further, p. 182— Ed.] 



A Candid Examination of Religion 109 

and many other first-rate originators in science 
were like Darwin. 

As an illustration of impure agnosticism take 
Hume's a priori argument against miracles, lead- 
ing on to the analogous case of the attitude of 
scientific men towards modern spiritualism. Not- 
withstanding that they have the close analogy 
of mesmerism as an object-lesson to warn them, 
scientific men as a class are here quite as dogmatic 
as the straightest sect of theologians. I may give 
examples which can cause no offence, inasmuch 
as the men in question have themselves made 

the facts public, viz. refusing to go to [a famous 

spiritualist] ; refusing to try in thought- 
reading \ These men all professed to be agnostics 
at the very time when thus so egregiously violating 
their philosophy by their conduct. 

Of course I do not mean to say that, even to 
a pure agnostic, reason should not be guided in 
part by antecedent presumption — e. g. in ordinary 
life, the prima facie case, motive, &c, counts for 
evidence in a court of law — and where there is 
a strong antecedent improbability a proportionately 
greater weight of evidence a posteriori is needed 
to counterbalance it : so that, e. g. better evidence 
would be needed to convict the Archbishop of 
Canterbury than a vagabond of pocket- picking. 
And so it is with speculative philosophy. But 
in both cases our only guide is known analogy; 
therefore, the further we are removed from possible 
experience — i. e. the more remote from experience 

1 [On the whole I have thought it best to omit the names. — Ed.] 



no Thoughts on Religion 

the sphere contemplated — the less value attaches 
to antecedent presumptions 1 . Maximum remote- 
ness from possible experience is reached in the 
sphere of the final mystery of things with which 
religion has to do ; so that here all presumption 
has faded away into a vanishing point, and pure 
agnosticism is our only rational attitude. In other 
words, here we should all alike be pure agnostics 
as far as reason is concerned ; and, if any of us 
are to attain to any information, it can only be by 
means of some super-added faculty of our minds. 
The questions as to whether there are any such 
super-added faculties ; if so, whether they ever 
appear to have been acted upon from without ; 
if they have, in what manner they have ; what 
is their report ; how far they are trustworthy 
in that report, and so on — these are the ques- 
tions with which this treatise is to be mainly 
concerned. 



1 [The MS. note here continues : ' Here introduce all that I say 
on the subject in my Burney Prize.' I have not, however, introduced 
any quotation into the text because (i) I think Romanes makes his 
meaning plain in the text as it stands ; (2) I cannot find in the essay 
in question any exactly appropriate passage of reasonable length to 
quote. The greater part of the essay is, however, directed to meet 
the scientific objection to the doctrine that prayer is answered in the 
physical region, by showing that this objection consists in an argu- 
ment from the known to the unknown, i. e. from the known sphere 
of invariable physical laws to the unknown sphere of God's relation 
to all such laws ; and is, therefore, weak in proportion as the unknown 
sphere is remote from possible experience of a scientific kind, and 
admits of an indefinite number of possibilities, more or less con- 
ceivable to our imagination, which would or might prevent the 
scientific argument from having legitimate application to the question 
in hand. — Ed.] 



A Candid Examination of Religion in 

My own attitude may be here stated. I do not \ 
claim any [religious] certainty of an intuitive kind 
myself; but am nevertheless able to investigate the 
abstract logic of the matter. And, although this 
may seem but barren dialectic, it may, I hope, be of 
practical service if it secures a fair hearing to the 
reports given by the vast majority of mankind who 
unquestionably believe them to emanate from some 
such super-added faculties — numerous and diverse 
though their religions be. Besides, in my youth 
I published an essay (the Candid Examination) 
which excited a good deal of interest at the time, 
and has been long out of print. In that treatise 
I have since come to see that I was wrong touching 
what I constituted the basal argument for my 
negative conclusion. Therefore I now feel it 
obligatory on me to publish the following results 
of my maturer thought, from the same stand-point 
of pure reason. Even though I have obtained no 
further light from the side of intuition, I have from 
that of intellect. So that, if there be in truth any 
such intuition, I occupy with regard to the organ 
of it the same position as that of the blind lecturer 
on optics. But on this very account I cannot be 
accused of partiality towards it. 

It is generally assumed that when a man has 
clearly perceived agnosticism to be the only legiti- 
mate attitude of reason to rest in with regard to 
religion (as I will subsequently show that it is), he 
has thereby finished with the matter ; he can go 
no further. The main object of this treatise is to 
show that such is by no means the case. He has 



112 



Thoughts on Religion 



/ 



then only begun his enquiry into the grounds and 
justification of religious belief. For reason is not 
the only attribute of man, nor is it the only faculty 
which he habitually employs for the ascertainment 
of truth. Moral and spiritual faculties are of no 
less importance in their respective spheres even 
of everyday life ; faith, trust, taste, &c, are as 
needful in ascertaining truth as to character, beauty. 
&c, as is reason. Indeed we may take it that 
reason is concerned in ascertaining truth only 
where causation is concerned ; the appropriate 
organs for its ascertainment where anything else 
is concerned belong to the moral and spiritual 
\ region. 



As Herbert Spencer says, 5 men of science may 
be divided into two classes, of which the one, well 
exemplified by Faraday, keeping their religion and 
their science absolutely separate, are unperplexed 
by any incongruities between them, and the other 
of which, occupying themselves exclusively with 
the facts of science, never ask what implications 
they have. Be it trilobite or be it double star, 
their thought about it is much like the thought 
of Peter Bell about the primrose 1 .' Now, both 
these classes are logical, since both, as to their 
religion, adopt an attitude of pure agnosticism, not 
only in theory, but also in practice. What, how- 
ever, have we to say of the third class, which 

1 Fortnightly Review, Feb. 1894. 



A Candid Examination of Religion 113 

Spencer does not mention, although it is, I think, 
the largest, viz. of those scientific men who 
expressly abstain from drawing a line of division 
between science and religion [and then judge 
of religion purely on the principles and by the 
method of science x ] ? 



There are two opposite casts of mind — the 
mechanical (scientific, &c.) and the spiritual (artistic, 
religious, &c). These may alternate even in the 
same individual. An ' agnostic ' has no hesitation 
— even though he himself keenly experience the 
latter — that the former only is worthy of trust. 
But a pure agnostic must know better, as he will 
perceive that there is nothing to choose between 
the two in point of trustworthiness. Indeed, if 
choice has to be made the mystic might claim 
higher authority for his direct intuitions. 



Mr. Herbert Spencer has well said, in the opening 
section of his Synthetic Philosophy, that wherever 
human thought appears to be radically divided, 
[there must be truth on both sides and that the] 
c reconciliation ' of opposing views is to be found 
by emphasizing that ultimate element of truth which 
on each side underlies manifold differences. More 
than is generally supposed depends on points of 
view, especially where first principles of a subject are 
in dispute. Opposite sides of the same shield may 

1 [Some such phrase is necessary to complete the sentence. — Ed.] 

H 



ii4 Thoughts on Religion 

present wholly different aspects x . Spencer alludes 
to this with special reference to the conflict between 
science and religion ; and it is in this same con- 
nexion that I also allude to it. For it seems to 
me, after many years of thought upon the subject, 
that the ' reconciliation ' admits of being carried 
much further than it has been by him. For he 
effects this reconciliation only to the extent of 
showing that religion arises from the recognition of 
fundamental mystery — which it may be proved 
that science also recognizes in all her fundamental 
ideas. This, however, is after all little more than 
a platitude. That our ultimate scientific ideas 
(i. e. ultimate grounds of experience) are inexplic- 
able, is a proposition which is self-evident since the 
dawn of human thought. My aim is to carry the 
* reconciliation ' into much more detail and yet 
without quitting the grounds of pure reason. I 

• J intend to take science and religion in their present 
highly developed states as such, and show that 
on a systematic examination of the latter by the 
methods of the former, the 'conflict' between the 
two may be not merely ' reconciled ' as regards the 
highest generalities of each, but entirely abolished 
in all matters of detail which can be regarded as of 

x any great importance. 



In any methodical enquiry the first object should 
be to ascertain the fundamental principles with 
which the enquiry is concerned. In actual research, 

1 First Principles, Part I, ch. I. 






A Candid Examination of Religion 115 

however, it is by no means always the case that the 
enquirer knows, or is able at first to ascertain what 
those principles are. In fact, it is often only at the 
end of a research, that they are discovered to be 
the fundamental principles. Such has been my 
own experience with regard to the subject of the 
present enquiry. Although all my thinking life 
has been concerned, off and on, in contemplating 
the problem of our religious instincts, the sundry 
attempts which have been made by mankind for 
securing their gratification, and the important 
question as to their objective justification, it is only 
in advanced years that I have clearly perceived 
wherein the first principles of such a research must 
consist. And I doubt whether any one has hitherto 
clearly defined this point. The principles in ques- 
tion are the nature of causation and the nature of 
faith. 



My objects then in this treatise are, mainly, 
three: 1st, to purify agnosticism; 2nd, to consider 
more fully than heretofore, and from the stand-point 
of pure agnosticism, the nature of natural causation, 
or, more correctly, the relation of what we know on 
the subject of such causation to the question of 
Theism ; and, 3rd, again starting from the same 
stand-point, to consider the religious conscious- 
nesses of men as phenomena of experience (i. e. as 
regarded by us from without), and especially in their 
highest phase of development as exhibited in 
Christianity. 

H 2 






§ 3. Causality. 

Only because we are so familiar with the great 
phenomenon of causality do we take it for granted, 
and think that we reach an ultimate explanation 
of anything when we have succeeded in finding 
the ' cause ' thereof: when, in point of fact, we have 
only succeeded in merging it in the mystery of 
mysteries. I often wish we could have come into 
the world, like the young of some other mam- 
mals, with all the powers of intellect that we shall 
ever subsequently attain already developed, but 
without any individual experience, and so without 
any of the blunting effects of custom. Could we 
have done so, surely nothing in the world would 
more acutely excite our intelligent astonish- 
ment than the one universal fact of causation. 
That everything which happens should have a cause, 
that this should invariably be proportioned to its 
effect, so that, no matter how complex the inter- 
action of causes, the same interaction should always 
produce the same result ; that this rigidly exact 
system of energizing should be found to present all 
the appearances of universality and of eternity, so 






A Candid Examination of Religion 117 

that, e. g., the motion of the solar system in space 
is being determined by some causes beyond human 
ken, and that we are indebted to billions of cellular 
unions, each involving billions of separate causes, 
for our hereditary passage from an invertebrate 
ancestry, — that such things should be, would surely 
strike us as the most wonderful fact in this 
wonderful universe. 

Now, although familiarity with this fact has made 
us forget its wonder to the extent of virtually 
assuming that we know all about it, philosophical 
enquiry shows that, besides empirically knowing it 
to be a fact, we only know one other thing about it, 
viz. — that our knowledge of it is derived from our 
own activity when we ourselves are causes. No 
result of psychological analysis seems to me more 
certain than this 1 . If it were not for our own 
volitions, we should be ignorant of what we can 
now not doubt, on pain of suicidal scepticism, to be 
the most general fact of nature. Such, at least, 
seems to me by far the most reasonable theory of 
our idea of causality, and is the one now most 
generally entertained by philosophers of every 
school. 

Now, to the plain man it will always seem that 
if our very notion of causality is derived from our 
own volition — as our very notion of energy is 
derived from our sense of effort in overcoming 
resistance by our volition — presumably the truest 

1 [Here it was intended to insert further explanation ' showing that 
mere observation of causality in external nature would not have 
yielded idea of anything further than time and space relations.' — Ed.] 



n8 Thoughts on Religion 

notion we can form of that in which causation 
objectively consists is the notion derived from that 
known mode of existence which alone gives us the 
notion of causality at all. Hence the plain man 
will always infer that all energy is of the nature of 
will-energy, and all objective causation of the nature 
of subjective. Nor is this inference confined to the 
plain man ; the deepest philosophical thinkers 
have arrived at substantially the same opinion, 
e. g. Hegel, Schopenhauer. So that the direct 
and most natural interpretation of causality in 
external nature which is drawn by primitive 
thought in savages and young children, seems 
destined to become also the ultimate deliverance of 
human thought in the highest levels of its culture 1 . 
But, be this as it may, we are not concerned with 
any such questions of abstract philosophical specu- 
lation. As pure agnostics they lie beyond our 
sphere. Therefore, I allude to them only for the 
sake of showing that there is nothing either in the 
science or philosophy of mankind inimical to the 
theory of natural causation being the energizing of 
a will objective to us. And we can plainly see 
that if such be the case, and if that will be self- 
consistent, its operations, as revealed in natural 
causation, must appear to us when considered en 
bloc (or not piece-meal as by savages), non- 
volitional, or mechanical. 

1 [This theory was suggested in the Burney Essay, p. 136, 
and ridiculed in the Candid Exa7?iination ; see above, p. 1 1. 
Romanes intended at this point to consider at greater length his 
old views ' on causation as due to being qua being.' — Ed.] 






A Candid Examination of Religion 119 

Of all philosophical theories of causality the most 
repugnant to reason must be those of Hume, Kant 
and Mill, which while differing from one another 
agree in this — that they attribute the principle of 
causality to a creation of our own minds, or in other 
words deny that there is anything objective in the 
relation of cause and effect — i.e. in the very thing 
which all physical science is engaged in discovering 
in particular cases of it. 



The conflict of Science and Religion has always 
arisen from one common ground of agreement, 
or fundamental postulate of both parties — with- 
out which, indeed, it would plainly have been 
impossible that any conflict could have arisen, 
inasmuch as there would then have been no field 
for battle. Every thesis must rest on some 
hypothesis ; therefore, in cases where two or more 
rival theses rest on a common hypothesis, the 
disputes must needs collapse so soon as the 
common hypothesis is proved erroneous. And 
proportionably, in whatever degree the previously 
common hypothesis is shown to be dubious, in that 
degree are the disputations shown to be possibly 
unreal. Now, it is one of the main objects of this 
treatise to show that the common hypothesis on 
which all the disputes between Science and Religion 
have arisen, is highly dubious. And not only so, 
but that quite apart from modern science all the 
difficulties on the side of intellect (or reason) which 
religious belief has ever encountered in the past, 



120 Thoughts on Religion 

or can ever encounter in the future, whether in the 
individual or the race, arise, and arise exclusively, 
from the self-same ground of this highly dubious 
hypothesis. 

The hypothesis, or fundamental postulate, in 
question is, If there be a personal God, He is not 
immediately concerned with natural causation. It 
is assumed that qua 'first cause, 5 He can in no 
way be concerned with ' second causes,' further 
than by having started them in the first instance 
as a great machinery of ' natural causation,' work- 
ing under c general laws.' True the theory of 
Deism, which entertains more or less expressly this 
hypothesis of ' Deus ex machina,' has during the 
present century been more and more superseded 
by that of Theism, which entertains also in some 
indefinable measure the doctrine of ' immanence'; 
as well as by that of Pantheism, which expressly 
holds this doctrine to the exclusion in toto of its 
rival. But Theism has never yet entertained it 
sufficiently or up to the degree required by the pure 
logic of the case, while Pantheism has but rarely 
considered the rival doctrine of personality — or the 
possible union of immanence with personality 1 . 

Now it is the object of this book to go much 
further than any one has hitherto gone in proving 
the possibility of this union. For I purpose to 
show that, provided only we lay aside all prejudice, 

1 See, however, Aubrey Moore in Lux filundi, pp. 94-96, and Le 
Conte, Evolution in its Relation to Religious Thought, pp. 335, ff. 
[N.B. The references not enclosed in brackets are the author's, not 
mine. — Ed.] 



A Candid Examination of Religion 121 

sentiment, &c, and follow to its logical termination 
the guidance of pure reason, there are no other 
conclusions to be reached than these. Namely, 
(A) That if there be a personal God, no reason can 
be assigned why He should not be immanent in 
nature, or why all causation should not be the 
immediate expression of His will. (B) That every 
available reason points to the inference that He 
probably is so. (C) That if He is so, and if His 
will is self-consistent, all natural causation must 
needs appear to us ' mechanical.' Therefore (D) 
that it is no argument against the divine origin of 
a thing, event, &c, to prove it due to natural 
causation. 

After having dealt briefly with (A), (B) and (Q, 
I would show that (D) is the most practically impor- 
tant of these four conclusions. For the fundamental 
hypothesis which I began by mentioning is just the 
opposite of this. Whether tacitly or expressly, it 
has always been assumed by both sides in the 
controversy between Science and Religion, that as 
soon as this that and the other phenomenon has been 
explained by means of natural causation, it has 
thereupon ceased to be ascribable [directly] to God. 
The distinction between the natural and the super- 
natural has always been regarded by both sides as 
indisputably sound, and this fundamental agree- 
ment as to ground of battle has furnished the only 
possible condition to fighting. It has also furnished 
the condition of all the past, and may possibly 
furnish the condition of all the future, discomfitures 
of religion. True religion is indeed learning her 



122 



Thoughts on Religion 



lesson that something is wrong in her method of 
fighting, and many of her soldiers are now waking 
up to the fact that it is here that her error lies- as in 
past times they woke up to see the error of denying 
the movement of the earth, the antiquity of the 
earth, the origin of species by evolution, &c But 
no one, even of her captains and generals, has so 
far followed up their advantage to its ultimate 
consequences. And this is what I want to do. The 
logical advantage is clearly on their side ; and it is 
their own fault if they do not gain the ultimate 
victory , — not only as against science, but as 
against intellectual dogmatism in every form. 
This can be routed all along the line. For science 
is only the organized study of natural causation, 
and the experience of every human being, in so far 
as it leads to dogmatism on purely intellectual 
grounds, does so on account of entertaining the 
fundamental postulate in question. The influence 
of custom and want of imagination is here very 
great. But the answer always should be to move 
the ulterior question — what is the nature of natural 
causation ? 

Now I propose to push to its full logical con- 
clusion the consequence of this answer. For no one, 
even the most orthodox, has as yet learnt this 
lesson of religion to anything like fullness. God is 
still grudged His own universe, so to speak, as far 
and as often as He can possibly be. As examples 
we may take the natural growth of Christianity out 
of previous religions ; the natural spread of it ; the 
natural conversion of St. Paul, or of anybody else. 



A Candid Examination of Religion 123 

It is still assumed on both sides that there must be 
something inexplicable or miraculous about a phe- 
nomenon in order to its being divine. 

What else have science and religion ever had to 
fight about save on the basis of this common 
hypothesis, and hence as to whether the causation 
of such and such a phenomenon has been ' natural ' 
or ' super-natural.' For even the disputes as to 
science contradicting scripture, ultimately turn on 
the assumption of inspiration (supposing it genuine) 
being ' super-natural ' as to its causation. Once 
grant that it is ' natural ' and all possible ground of 
dispute is removed. 

I can well understand why infidelity should 
make the basal assumption in question, because its 
whole case must rest thereon. But surely it is 
time for theists to abandon this assumption. 

The assumed distinction between causation as 
natural and super- natural no doubt began in super- 
stition in prehistoric time, and throughout the 
historical period has continued from a vague 
feeling that the action of God must be mysterious, 
and hence that the province of religion must be 
within the super-sensuous. Now, it is true enough 
that the finite cannot comprehend the infinite, 
and hence the feeling in question is logically sound. 
But under the influence of this feeling, men have 
always committed the fallacy of concluding that if 
a phenomenon has been explained in terms of 
natural causation, it has thereby been explained in 
toto — forgetting that it has only been explained up 
to the point where such causation is concerned, and 



124 Thoughts on Religion 

that the real question of ultimate causation has 
merely been thus postponed. And assuredly 
beyond this point there is an infinitude of mystery 
sufficient to satisfy the most exacting mystic. For 
even Herbert Spencer allows that in ultimate 
analysis all natural causation is inexplicable. 

Logically regarded the advance of science, far 
from having weakened religion, has immeasurably 
strengthened it. For it has proved the uniformity 
of natural causation. The so-called natural sphere 
has increased at the expense of the ' super-natural.' 
Unquestionably. But although to lower grades of 
culture this always seems a fact inimical to religion, 
we may now perceive it is quite the reverse, since 
it merely goes to abolish the primitive or un- 
cultured distinction in question. 

It is indeed most extraordinary how long this 
distinction has held sway, or how it is the ablest 
men of all generations have quietly assumed that 
when once we know the natural causation of any 
phenomenon, we therefore know all about it — or, as 
it were, have removed it from the sphere of mystery 
altogether, when, in point of fact, we have only 
merged it in a much greater mystery than ever. 

But the answer to our astonishment how this 
distinction has managed to survive so long lies in 
the extraordinary effect of custom, which here 
seems to slay reason altogether ; and the more 
a man busies himself with natural causes (e.g. in 
scientific research) the greater does this slavery to 
custom become, till at last he seems positively un- 
able to perceive the real state of the case — 



A Candid Examination of Religion 125 

regarding any rational thinking thereon as chi- 
merical, so that the term c meta-physical, ' even in 
its etymological sense as super-sensuous or beyond 
physical causation, becomes a term of rational re- 
proach. Obviously such a man has written himself 
down, if not an ass, at all events a creature wholly 
incapable of rationally treating any of the highest 
problems presented either by nature or by man. 

On any logical theory of Theism there can be 
no such distinction between ' natural ' and ' super- 
natural ' as is usually drawn, since on that theory 
all causation is but the action of the Divine Will. 
And if we draw any distinction between such action 
as 'immediate' or 'mediate/ we can only mean 
this as valid in relation to mankind — i. e. in 
relation to our experience. For, obviously, it 
would be wholly incompatible with pure agnosti- 
cism to suppose that we are capable of drawing any 
such distinction in relation to the Divine activity 
itself. Even apart from the theory of Theism, 
pure agnosticism must take it that the real distinc- 
tion is not between natural and supernatural, but 
between the explicable and the inexplicable — 
meaning by those terms that which is and that 
which is not accountable by such causes as fall 
within the range of human observation. Or, in 
other words, the distinction is really between the 
observable and the unobservable causal processes of 
the universe. 

Although science is essentially engaged in 
explaining, her work is necessarily confined to the 
sphere of natural causation ; beyond that sphere 



126 Thoughts on Religion 

(i. e. the sensuous) she can explain nothing. In 
other words, even if she were able to explain the 
natural causation of everything, she would be 
unable to assign the ultimate raison d'etre of 
anything. 



It is not my intention to write an essay on the 
nature of causality, or even to attempt a survey of 
the sundry theories which have been propounded 
on this subject by philosophers. Indeed, to 
attempt this would be little less than to write 
a history of philosophy itself. Nevertheless it is 
necessary for my purpose to make a few remarks 
touching the main branches of thought upon the 
matter 1 . 

The remarkable nature of the facts. These are 
remarkable, since they are common to all human 
experience. Everything that happens has a cause. 
The same happening has always the same cause 
— or the same consequent the same antecedent. 
It is only familiarity with this great fact that 
prevents universal wonder at it, for, notwithstanding 
all the theories upon it, no one has ever really 
shown why it is so. That the same causes always 
produce the same effects is a proposition which 
expresses a fundamental fact of our knowledge, but 
the knowledge of this fact is purely empirical ; 
we can show no reason why it should be a fact. 
Doubtless, if it were not a fact, there could be no 

1 [Nothing more however was written than what follows im- 
mediately. — Ed.] 



A Candid Examination of Religion 127 

so-called ' Order of Nature,' and consequently no 
science, no philosophy, or perhaps (if the irregularity 
were sufficiently frequent) no possibility of human 
experience. But although this is easy enough to 
show, it in no wise tends to show why the same 
causes should always produce the same effects. 

So manifest is it that our knowledge of the fact 
in question is only empirical, that some of our 
ablest thinkers, such as Hume and Mill, have 
failed to perceive even so much as the intellectual 
necessity of looking beyond our empirical know- 
ledge of the fact to gain any explanation of the 
fact itself. Therefore they give to the world the 
wholly vacuous, or merely tautological theory of 
causation — viz. that of constancy of sequence 
within human observation 1 . 



If it be said of my argument touching causality, 
that it is naturalizing or materializing the super- 
natural or spiritual (as most orthodox persons 
will feel), my reply is that deeper thought will 
show it to be at least as susceptible of the oppo- 
site view — viz. that it is subsuming the natural 
into the super-natural, or spiritualizing the material : 
and a pure agnostic, least of all, should have any- 
thing to say as against either of these alternative 
points of view. Or we may state the matter thus : 
in as far as pure reason can have anything to say 

1 [The author intended further to show the vacuity of this theory 
and point out how Mill himself appears to perceive it by his introduc- 
tion after the term ' invariably ' of the term ' unconditionally ' ; he 
refers also to Martineau, Study of Religion, i. pp. 152, 3. — Ed.] 



128 Thoughts on Religion 

in the matter, she ought to incline towards the view 
of my doctrine spiritualizing the material, because 
it is pretty certain that we could know nothing 
about natural causation — even so much as its 
existence — but for our own volitions. 

Free Will 1 . 

Having read all that is said to be worth read- 
ing on the Free Will controversy, it appears to me 
that the main issues and their logical conclusions 
admit of being summed up in a very few words, 
thus : — 

i. A writer, before he undertakes to deal with 
this subject at all, should be conscious of fully 
perceiving the fundamental distinction between 
responsibility as merely legal and as also moral ; 
otherwise he cannot but miss the very essence of 
the question in debate. No one questions the 
patent fact of responsibility as legal ; the only 
question is touching responsibility as moral. Yet 
the principal bulk of literature on Free Will and 
Necessity arises from disputants on both sides 
failing to perceive this basal distinction. Even 
such able writers as Spencer, Huxley and Clifford 
are in this position. 

2. The root question is as to whether the will 
is caused or un-caused. For however much this 
root-question may be obscured by its own abundant 

1 [This Note on Free Will is exceedingly incomplete and conse- 
quently obscure. But it seemed to me on the whole to be sufficiently 
intelligible to admit of publication. — Ed.] 






A Candid Examination of Religion 129 

foliage, the latter can have no existence but that 
which it derives from the former. 

3. Consequently, if libertarians grant causality 
as appertaining to the will, however much they 
may beat about the bush, they are surrendering 
their position all along the line, unless they fall 
back upon the more ultimate question as to the 
nature of natural causation. Now it can be 
proved that this more ultimate question is [scien- 
tifically] unanswerable. Therefore both sides may 
denominate natural causation x — an unknown 
quantity. 

4. Hence the whole controversy ought to be 
seen by both sides to resolve itself into this — is 
or is not the will determined by x? And, if this 
seems but a barren question to debate, I do not 
undertake to deny the fact. At the same time 
there is clearly this real issue remaining — viz. Is 
the will self-determining, or is it determined — i.e. 
from without} 

5. If determined from without, is there any room 
for freedom, in the sense required for saving the 
doctrine of moral responsibility ? And I think the 
answer to this must be an unconditional negative. 

6. But, observe, it is not one and the same 
thing to ask, Is the w r ill entirely determined from 
without ? and Is the will entirely determined by 
natural causation (x) ? For the unknown quantity 
x may very well include x\ if by x we under- 
stand all the unknown ingredients of personality. 

7. Hence, determinists gain no advantage over 

I 



130 Thoughts on Religion 

their adversaries by any possible proof (at present 
impossible) that all acts of will are due to natural 
causation, unless they can show the nature of the 
latter, and that it is of such a nature as supports 
their conclusion. For aught we at present know, the 
will may very well be free in the sense required, 
even though all its acts are due to x. 

8. In particular, for aught we know to the con- 
trary, all may be due to x\ i. e. all causation may be 
of the nature of will (as, indeed, many systems 
of philosophy maintain), with the result that every 
human will is of the nature of a First Cause. In 
support of which possibility it may be remarked 
that most philosophies are led to the theory of 
a causa causarum as regards x. 

9. To the obvious objection that with a 
plurality of first causes — each the fons et origo of 
a new and never-ending stream of causality — the 
cosmos must sooner or later become a chaos by 
cumulative intersection of the streams, the answer 
is to be found in the theory of monism \ 

10. Nevertheless, the ultimate difficulty remains 
which is depicted in my essay on the ' World as an 
Eject V But this, again, is merged in the mystery 
of Personality, which is only known as an inex- 
plicable, and seemingly ultimate, fact. 

11. So that the general conclusion of the whole 
matter must be — pure agnosticism. 

1 [See above, p. 31. — Ed.] 

2 Contemporary Review, July 1886. [But the ' ultimate difficulty' 
referred to above would seem to be the relation of manifold dependent 
human wills to the One Ultimate and All-embracing Will. — Ed.] 






§ 4- Faith. 



Faith in its religious sense is distinguished not 
only from opinion (or belief founded on reason 
alone), in that it contains a spiritual element : it 
is further distinguished from belief founded on 
the affections, by needing an active co-operation 
of the will. Thus all parts of the human mind 
have to be involved in faith — intellect, emotions, 
will. We ' believe' in the theory of evolution on 
grounds of reason alone ; we ' believe ' in the 
affection of our parents, children, &c, almost (or 
it may be exclusively) on what I have called 
spiritual grounds — i.e. on grounds of spiritual ex- 
perience ; for this we need no exercise either of 
reason or of will. But no one can ' believe ' in 
God, or a fortiori in Christ, without also a 
severe effort of will. This I hold to be a matter 
of fact, whether or not there be a God or a 
Christ. 

Observe will is to be distinguished from desire. 
It matters not what psychologists may have to 
say upon this subject. Whether desire differs from 
will in kind or only in degree — whether will is 

I 2 



132 Thoughts on Religion 

desire in action, so to speak, and desire but in- 
cipient will — are questions with which we need 
not trouble ourselves. For it is certain that there 
are agnostics who would greatly prefer being 
theists, and theists who would give all they pos- 
sess to be Christians, if they could thus secure 
promotion by purchase — i.e. by one single act of 
will But yet the desire is not strong enough to 
sustain the will in perpetual action, so as to make 
the continual sacrifices which Christianity entails. 
Perhaps the hardest of these sacrifices to an in- 
telligent man is that of his own intellect. At 
least I am certain that this is so in my own case. 
I have been so long accustomed to constitute my 
reason my sole judge of truth, that even while 
reason itself tells me it is not unreasonable to 
expect that the heart and the will should be re- 
quired to join with reason in seeking God (for 
religion is for the whole man), I am too jealous 
of my reason to exercise my will in the direction 
of my most heart-felt desires. For assuredly the 
strongest desire of my nature is to find that that 
nature is not deceived in its highest aspirations. 
Yet I cannot bring myself so much as to make 
a venture in the direction of faith. For instance, 
regarded from one point of view it seems reason- 
able enough that Christianity should have enjoined 
the doing of the doctrine as a necessary condition 
to ascertaining (i. e. ' believing ') its truth. But 
from another, and my more habitual point of view, 
it seems almost an affront to reason to make 
any such 'fool's experiment' — just as to some 



A Candid Examination of Religion 133 

scientific men it seems absurd and childish to ex- 
pect them to investigate the ' superstitious ' follies 
of modern spiritualism. Even the simplest act 
of will in regard to religion — that of prayer — 
has not been performed by me for at least a 
quarter of a century, simply because it has seemed 
so impossible to pray, as it were, hypothetically, 
that much as I have always desired to be able 
to pray, I cannot will the attempt. To justify 
myself for what my better judgement has often 
seen to be essentially irrational, I have ever made 
sundry excuses. The chief of them has run thus. 
Even supposing Christianity true, and even sup- 
posing that after having so far sacrificed my reason 
to my desire as to have satisfied the supposed 
conditions to obtaining 'grace' or direct illumin- 
ation from God, — even then would not my reason 
turn round and revenge herself upon me ? For 
surely even then my habitual scepticism would 
make me say to myself — 'this is all very sublime 
and very comforting ; but what evidence have 
you to give me that the whole business is any- 
thing more than self-delusion ? The wish was 
probably father to the thought, and you might 
much better have performed your " act of will " by 
going in for a course of Indian hemp/ Of course 
a Christian would answer to this that the internal 
light would not admit of such doubt, any more 
than seeing the sun does — that God knows us well 
enough to prevent that, &c, and also that it is 
unreasonable not to try an experiment lest the 
result should prove too good to be credible, and 



134 Thoughts on Religion 

so on. And I do not dispute that the Christian 
would be justified in so answering, but I only 
adduce the matter as an illustration of the dif- 
ficulty which is experienced in conforming to all 
the conditions of attaining to Christian faith — even 
supposing it to be sound. Others have doubtless 
other difficulties, but mine is chiefly, I think, 
that of an undue regard to reason, as against 
heart and will — undue, I mean, if so it be that 
Christianity is true, and the conditions to faith 
in it have been of divine ordination. 

This influence of will on belief, even in matters 
secular, is the more pronounced the further re- 
moved these matters may be from demonstration (as 
already remarked) ; but this is most of all the case 
where our personal interests are affected- — whether 
these be material or intellectual, such as credit for 
consistency, &c. See, for example, how closely, 
in the respects we are considering, political beliefs 
resemble religious. Unless the points of difference 
are such that truth is virtually demonstrable on 
one side, so that adhesion to the opposite is due 
to conscious sacrifice of integrity to expediency, 
we always find that party-spectacles so colour 
the view as to leave reason at the mercy of 
will, custom, interest, and all the other circum- 
stances which similarly operate on religious beliefs. 
It seems to make but little difference in either 
case what level of general education, mental power, 
special training, &c, is brought to bear upon the 
question under judgement. From the Premier to 
the peasant we find the same difference of opinion 



A Candid Examination of Religion 135 

in politics as we do in religion. And in each 
case the explanation is the same. Beliefs are so 
little dependent on reason alone that in such 
regions of thought — i. e. where personal interests 
are affected and the evidences of truth are not in 
their nature demonstrable — it really seems as if 
reason ceases to be a judge of evidence or guide 
to truth, and becomes a mere advocate of opinion 
already formed on quite other grounds. Now 
these other grounds are, as we have seen, mainly 
the accidents of habit or custom, wish being father 
to the thought, &c. 

Now this may be all deplorable enough in 
politics, and in all other beliefs secular ; but who 
shall say it is not exactly as it ought to be in 
the matter of beliefs religious? For, unless we 
beg the question of a future life in the negative, 
we must entertain at least the possibility of our 
being in a state of probation in respect of an 
honest use not only of our reason, but probably 
still more of those other ingredients of human 
nature which go to determine our beliefs touch- 
ing this most important of all matters. 

It is remarkable how even in politics it is the 
moral and spiritual elements of character which 
lead to success in the long run, even more than 
intellectual ability — supposing, of course, that the 
latter is not below the somewhat high level of 
our Parliamentary assemblies. 

As regards the part that is played by will in 
the determining of belief, one can show how un- 
consciously large this is even in matters of secular 



136 Thoughts on Religion 

interest. Reason is very far indeed from being 
the sole guide of judgement that it is usually 
taken to be — so far, indeed, that, save in matters 
approaching down-right demonstration (where of 
course there is no room for any other ingredient) 
it is usually hampered by custom, prejudice, 
dislike, &c , to a degree that would astonish the 
most sober philosopher could he lay bare to 
himself all the mental processes whereby the 
complex act of assent or dissent is eventually 
determined 1 . 

As showing how little reason alone has to do 
with the determining of religious belief, let us 
take the case of mathematicians. This I think 
is the fairest case we can take, seeing that of all 

1 Cf. Pascal, Pensees. ' For we must not mistake ourselves, we have 
as much that is automatic in us as intellectual, and hence it comes that 
the instrument by which persuasion is brought about is not demon- 
stration alone. How few things are demonstrated ! Proofs can only 
convince the mind; custom makes our strongest proofs and those 
which we hold most firmly, it sways the automaton, which draws 
the unconscious intellect after it. . . . It is then custom that makes 
so many men Christians, custom that makes them Turks, heathen, 
artisans, soldiers, &c. Lastly, we must resort to custom when once 
the mind has seen where truth is, in order to slake our thirst and 
steep ourselves in that belief which escapes us at every hour, for to 
have proofs always at hand were too onerous. We must acquire a 
more easy belief, that of custom, which without violence, without art, 
without argument, causes our assent and inclines all our powers to 
this belief, so that our soul naturally falls into it. . . . 

1 It is not enough to believe only by force of conviction if the 
automaton is inclined to believe the contrary. Both parts of us then 
must be obliged to believe, the intellect by arguments which it is 
enough to have admitted once in our lives, the automaton by custom, 
and by not allowing it to incline in the contrary direction. Inclina 
cor meum DeusJ See also Newman's Grammar of Assent, chap. vi. 
and Church's Human Life and its Conditions, pp. 67-9. 



A Candid Examination of Religion 137 

intellectual pursuits that of mathematical research 
is the most exact, as well as the most exclusive 
in its demand upon the powers of reason, and 
hence that, as a class, the men who have achieved 
highest eminence in that pursuit may be fairly 
taken as the fittest representatives of our species 
in respect of the faculty of pure reason. Yet 
whenever they have turned their exceptional powers 
in this respect upon the problems of religion, how 
suggestively well balanced are their opposite con- 
clusions — so much so indeed that we can only 
conclude that reason counts for very little in the 
complex of mental processes which here determine 
judgement. 

Thus, if we look to the greatest mathematicians 
in the world's history, we find Kepler and Newton 
as Christians ; La Place, on the other hand, an 
infidel. Or, coming to our own times, and confining 
our attention to the principal seat of mathematical 
study: — when I was at Cambridge, there was a 
galaxy of genius in that department emanating 
from that place such as had never before been 
equalled. And the curious thing in our present 
connexion is that all the most illustrious names 
were ranged on the side of orthodoxy. Sir W. 
Thomson, Sir George Stokes, Professors Tait, 
Adams, Clerk-Maxwell, and Cayley — not to men- 
tion a number of lesser lights, such as Routh, 
Todhunter, Ferrers, &c. — were all avowed Chris- 
tians. Clifford had only just moved at a bound 
from the extreme of asceticism to that of infidelity — 
an individual instance which I deem of particular 



138 Thoughts on Religion 

interest in the present connexion, as showing the 
dominating influence of a forcedly emotional char- 
acter even on so powerful an intellectual one, for 
the rationality of the whole structure of Christian 
belief cannot have so reversed its poles within a few 
months. 

Now it would doubtless be easy to find elsewhere 
than in Cambridge mathematicians of the first 
order who in our own generation are, or have 
been, professedly anti-Christian in their beliefs, — 
although certainly not so great an array of such 
extraordinary powers. But, be this as it may, 
the case of Cambridge in my own time seems 
to me of itself enough to prove that Christian 
belief is neither made nor marred by the highest 
powers of reasoning, apart from other and still 
more potent factors. 



Faith and Superstition. 

Whether or not Christianity is true, there is 
a great distinction between these two things. For 
while the main ingredient of Christian faith is 
the moral element, this has no part in superstition. 
In point of fact, the only point of resemblance 
is that both present the mental state called belief. 
It is on this account they are so often confounded 
by anti-Christians, and even by non-Christians ; 
the much more important point of difference is not 
noted, viz. that belief in the one case is purely 
intellectual, while in the other it is chiefly moral. 



A Candid Examination of Religion 139 

Qua purely intellectual; belief may indicate nothing 
but sheer credulity in absence of evidence ; but 
where a moral basis is added, the case is clearly 
different ; for even if it appears to be sheer cre- 
dulity to an outsider, that may be because he 
does not take into account the additional evidence 
supplied by the moral facts. 



Faith and superstition are often confounded, 
or even identified. And, unquestionably, they 
are identical up to a certain point — viz. they both 
present the mental state of belief. All people 
can see this ; but not all people can see further, 
or define the differentiae. These are as follows : 
First, supposing Christianity true, there is the 
spiritual verification. Second, supposing Chris- 
tianity false, there is still the moral ingredient, 
which ex hypothesi is absent in superstition. In 
other words, both faith and superstition rest on 
an intellectual basis (which may be pure credulity); 
but faith rests also on a moral, even if not like- 
wise on a spiritual. Even in human relations there 
is a wide difference between 'belief in a scientific 
theory and ' faith' in a personal character. And 
the difference is in the latter comprising a moral 
element. 

8 Faith-healing,' therefore, has no real point of 
resemblance with ' thy faith hath saved thee ' 
of the New Testament, unless we sink the personal 
differences between a modern faith-healer and 
Jesus Christ as objects of faith. 



140 Thoughts on Religion 

Belief is not exclusively founded on objective 
evidence appealing to reason (opinion), but mainly 
on subjective evidence appealing to some altogether 
different faculty (faith). Now, whether Christians 
are right or wrong in what they believe, I hold it as 
certain as anything can be that the distinction which 
I have just drawn, and which they all implicitly 
draw for themselves, is logically valid. For no 
one is entitled to deny the possibility of what 
may be termed an organ of spiritual discernment. 
In fact to do so would be to vacate the position 
of pure agnosticism in toto — and this even if there 
were no objective, or strictly scientific, evidences 
in favour of such an organ, such as we have in 
the lives of the saints, and, in a lower degree, in 
the universality of the religious sentiment. Now, 
if there be such an organ, it follows from preceding 
paragraphs, that not only will the main evidences 
for Christianity be subjective, but that they ought 
to be so : they ought to be so, I mean, on the 
Christian supposition of the object of Christianity 
being moral probation, and c faith 5 both the test 
and the reward. 

From this many practical considerations ensue. 
E. g. the duty of parents to educate their children 
in what they believe as distinguished from what 
they know. This would be unjustifiable if faith were 
the same as opinion. But it is fully justifiable 
if a man not only knows that he believes (opinion) 
but believes that he knows (faith). Whether or 
not the Christian differs from the ' natural man ' in 
having a spiritual organ of cognition, provided 



A Candid Examination of Religion 141 

he honestly believes such is the case, it would be 
immoral in him not to proceed in accordance 
with what he thus believes to be his knowledge. 
This obligation is recognized in education in every 
other case. He is morally right even if mentally 
deluded. 



Huxley ; in Lay Sermons, says that faith has 
been proved a ' cardinal sin ' by science. Now, this 
is true enough of credulity, superstition, &c, and 
science has done no end of good in developing our 
ideas of method, evidence, &c. But this is all on 
the side of intellect. ' Faith ' is not touched by such 
facts or considerations. And what a terrible hell 
science would have made of the world, if she had 
abolished the ' spirit of faith ' even in human rela- 
tions. The fact is, Huxley falls into the common 
error of identifying ' faith ' with opinion. 



Supposing Christianity true, it is very reasonable 
that faith in the sense already explained should be 
constituted the test of divine acceptance. If there 
be such a thing as Christ's winnowing fan, the quality 
of sterling weight for the discovery of which it is 
adapted cannot be conceived as anything other than 
this moral quality. No one could suppose a reve- 
lation appealing to the mere intellect of man, 
since acceptance would thus become a mere matter 
of prudence in subscribing to a demonstration made 
by higher intellects. 



142 Thoughts on Religion 

It is also a matter of fact that if Christianity 
is truthful in representing this world as a school 
of moral probation, we cannot conceive a system 
better adapted to this end than is the world, or 
a better schoolmaster than Christianity. This is 
proved not only by general reasoning, but also 
by the work of Christianity in the world, its 
adaptation to individual needs, &c. Consider also 
the extraordinary diversity of human characters 
in respect both of morality and spirituality 
though all are living in the same world. Out of 
the same external material or environment such 
astonishingly diverse products arise according to 
the use made of it. Even human suffering in 
its worst forms can be welcome if justified by faith 
in such an object. ' Ills have no weight, and tears 
no bitterness,' but are rather to be ' gloried in V 

It is a further fact that only by means of this 
theory of probation is it possible to give any mean- 
ing to the world, i. e. any raison d'etre of human 
existence. 

Supposing Christianity true, every man must 
stand or fall by the results of his own conduct, as 
developed through his own moral character. (This 
could not be so if the test w r ere intellectual ability.) 
Yet this does not hinder that the exercise of will 
in the direction of religion should need help in 
order to attain belief. Nor does it hinder that 
some men should need more help and others less. 
Indeed, it may well be that some men are inten- 

1 [The author has added, " For suffering in brutes see further on/' 
but nothing further on the subject appears to have been written. — Ed. 



A Candid Examination of Religion 143 

tionally precluded from receiving any help, so as 
not to increase their responsibility, or receive but 
little, so as to constitute intellectual difficulties 
a moral trial. But clearly, if such things are so, 
we are inadequate judges. 



It is a fact that we all feel the intellectual part 
of man to be ' higher ' than the animal, whatever 
our theory of his origin. It is a fact that we all 
feel the moral part of man to be ' higher ' than the 
intellectual, whatever our theory of either may be. 
It is also a fact that we all similarly feel the 
spiritual to be c higher' than the moral, whatever 
our theory of religion may be. It is what we 
understand by man's moral, and still more his 
spiritual, qualities that go to constitute ' character.' 
And it is astonishing how in all walks of life it 
is character that tells in the long run. 

It is a fact that these distinctions are all well 
marked and universally recognized — viz. 

Animality. 

Intellectuality. 

Morality. 

Spirituality. 

Morality and spirituality are to be distinguished 
as two very different things. A man may be 
highly moral in his conduct without being in any 
degree spiritual in his nature, and, though to 
a lesser extent, vice versa. And, objectively, we see 
the same distinction between morals and religion. 
By spirituality I mean the religious temperament, 



Human 



144 Thoughts on Religion 

whether or not associated with any particular creed 
or dogma. 

There is no doubt that intellectual pleasures are 
more satisfying and enduring than sensual — or even 
sensuous. And, to those who have experienced 
them, so it is with spiritual over intellectual, artistic, 
&c. This is an objective fact, abundantly testified 
to by every one who has had experience : and it 
seems to indicate that the spiritual nature of man 
is the highest part of man — the [culminating] 
point of his being. 



It is probably true, as Renan says in his 
posthumous work ; that there will always be 
materialists and spiritualists, inasmuch as it will 
always be observable on the one hand that there 
is no thought without brain, while, on the other 
hand, instincts of man will always aspire to higher 
beliefs. But this is just what ought to be if 
religion is true, and we are in a state of probation. 
And is it not probable that the materialistic 
position (discredited even by philosophy) is due 
simply to custom and want of imagination ? Else 
why the inextinguishable instincts ? 



It is much more easy to disbelieve than to 
believe. This is obvious on the side of reason, 
but it is also true on that of spirit, for to disbelieve 
is in accordance with environment or custom, while 
to believe necessitates a spiritual use of the imagina- 



A Candid Examination of Religion 145 

tion. For both these reasons, very few unbelievers 
have any justification, either intellectual or spiritual, 
for their own unbelief. 

Unbelief is usually due to indolence, often to 
prejudice, and never a thing to be proud of. 



s Why should it be thought a thing incredible 
with you that God should raise the dead ? ' Clearly 
no answer can be given by the pure agnostic. 
But he will naturally say in reply, 'the question 
rather is, why should it be thought credible with 
you that there is a God, or, if there is, that 
he should raise the dead ? ' And I think the wise 
Christian will answer, ' I believe in the resurrection 
of the dead, partly on grounds of reason, partly 
on those of intuition, but chiefly on both combined ; 
so to speak, it is my whole character which accepts 
the whole system of which the doctrine of personal 
immortality forms an essential part' And to this 
it may be fairly added that the Christian doctrine 
of the resurrection of our bodily form cannot have 
been arrived at for the purpose of meeting modern 
materialistic objections to the doctrine of personal 
immortality ; hence it is certainly a strange doctrine 
to have been propounded at that time, together 
with its companion, and scarcely less distinctive, 
doctrine of the vileness of the body. Why was 
it not said that the • soul ' alone should survive 
as a disembodied ' spirit ' ? Or if form were sup- 
posed necessary for man as distinguished from 
God, that he was to be an angel? But, be this 

K 



146 Thoughts on Religion 

as it may, the doctrine of the resurrection seems 
to have fully met beforehand the materialistic 
objection to a future life, and so to have raised the 
ulterior question with which this paragraph opens. 



We have seen in the Introduction that all first 
principles even of scientific facts are known by 
intuition and not by reason. No one can deny 
this. Now, if there be a God, the fact is certainly 
of the nature of a first principle ; for it must be 
the first of all first principles. No one can dispute 
this. No one can therefore dispute the necessary 
conclusion, that, if there be a God, He is knowable, 
(if knowable at all) by intuition and not by reason. 

Indeed a little thought is enough to show that 
from its very nature as such, reason must be 
incapable of adjudicating on the subject, for it 
is a process of inferring from the known to the 
unknown. 

Or thus. It would be against reason itself to 
suppose that God, even if He exists, can be known 
by reason; He must be known, if knowable at all, 
by intuition \ 



Observe, although God might give an objective 
revelation of Himself, e.g. as Christians believe He 

1 [In this connexion I may again notice that two days before his 
death George Romanes expressed his cordial approval of Professor 
Knight's Aspects of Theism — a work in which great stress is laid on 
the argument from intuition in different forms. — Ed.] 



A Candid Examination of Religion 147 

has, even this would not give knowledge of Him 
save to those who believe the revelations genuine ; 
and I doubt whether it is logically possible for any 
form of objective revelation of itself to compel belief 
in it. Assuredly one rising from the dead to testify 
thereto would not, nor would letters of fire across 
the sky do so. But, even if it were logically 
possible, we need not consider the abstract possi- 
bility, seeing that, as a matter of fact, no such 
demonstrative revelation has been given. 

Hence, the only legitimate attitude of pure 
reason is pure agnosticism. No one can deny 
this. But, it will be said, there is this vast differ- 
ence between our intuitive knowledge of all other 
first principles and that alleged of the c first of 
all first principles/ viz. that the latter is confessedly 
not known to all men. Now, assuredly, there is 
here a vast difference. But so there ought to be, 
if we are here in a state of probation, as before 
explained. And that we are in such a state is not 
only the hypothesis of religion, but the sole rational 
explanation as well as moral justification of our 
existence as rational beings and moral agents \ 



It is not necessarily true, as J. S. Mill and all 
other agnostics think, that even if internal intuition 
be of divine origin, the illumination thus furnished 
can only be of evidential value to the individual 
subject thereof. On the contrary, it may be studied 
objectively, even if not experienced subjectively ; 

1 On this subject see Pascal, Pensies (Kegan Paul's trans.) p. 103. 
K 2 



148 Thoughts on Religion 

and ought to be so studied by a pure agnostic de- 
sirous of light from any quarter. Even if he does 
not know it as a noumenon he can investigate it 
as a phenomenon. And, supposing it to be of divine 
origin, as its subjects believe and he has no reason 
to doubt, he may gain much evidence against its 
being a mere psychological illusion from identical 
reports of it in all ages. Thus, if any large section 
of the race were to see flames issuing from mag- 
nets, there would be no doubt as to their objective 
reality. 



The testimony given by Socrates to the occur- 
rence in himself of an internal Voice, having all 
the definiteness of an auditory hallucination, has 
given rise to much speculation by subsequent 
philosophers. 

Many explanations are suggested, but if we 
remember the critical nature of Socrates' own 
mind, the literal nature of his mode of teaching, 
and the high authority which attaches to Plato's 
opinion on the subject, the probability seems to 
incline towards the ' Demon ' having been, in 
Socrates' own consciousness, an actual auditory 
sensation. Be this however as it may, I suppose 
there is no question that we may adopt this view 
of the matter at least to the extent of classifying 
Socrates with Luther, Pascal, &c, not to mention 
all the line of Hebrew and other prophets, who 
agree in speaking of a Divine Voice. 

If so, the further question arises whether we 






A Candid Examination of Religion 149 

are to classify all these with lunatics in whom the 
phenomena of auditory hallucination are habitual. 

Without doubt this hypothesis is most in ac- 
cordance with the temper of our age, partly 
because it obeys the law of parsimony, and partly 
because it [negatives] a priori the possibility of 
revelation. 

But if we look at the matter from the point of 
view of pure agnosticism, we are not entitled to 
adopt so rough and ready an interpretation. 

Suppose then that not only Socrates and all 
great religious reformers and founders of religious 
systems both before and after him were similarly 
stricken with mental disease, but that similar 
phenomena had occurred in the case of all scientific 
discoverers such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, &c. 
— supposing all these men to have declared that 
their main ideas had been communicated by 
subjective sensations as of spoken language, so that 
all the progress of the world's scientific thought had 
resembled that of the world's religious thought, and 
had been attributed by the promoters thereof to 
direct inspirations of this kind — would it be pos- 
sible to deny that the testimony thus afforded to 
the fact of subjective revelation would have been 
overwhelming ? Or could it any longer have been 
maintained that supposing a revelation to be 
communicated subjectively the fact thereof could 
only be of any evidential value to the recipient 
himself? To this it will no doubt be answered, 
■ No, but in the case supposed the evidence arises 
not from the fact of their subjective intuition but 



150 Thoughts on Religion 

from that of its objective verification in the results 
of science/ Quite so; but this is exactly the test 
appealed to by the Hebrew prophets — the test of 
true and lying prophets being in the fulfilment or 
non-fulfilment of their prophecies and ' By their 
fruits ye shall known them.' 

Therefore it is as absurd to say that the religious 
consciousness of minds other than our own can be 
barred antecedently as evidence, as it is to say that 
testimony to the miraculous is similarly barred. 
The pure agnostic must always carefully avoid the 
; high priori road. 5 But, on the other hand, he 
must be all the more assiduous in estimating fairly 
the character, both as to quantity and quality, of 
evidence a posteriori. Now this evidence in the 
present case is twofold, positive and negative. It 
will be convenient to consider the negative first. 

The negative evidence is furnished by the 
nature of man without God. It is thoroughly 
miserable, as is well shown by Pascal, who has 
devoted the whole of the first part of his treatise to 
this subject. I need not go over the ground which 
he has already so well traversed. 

Some men are not conscious of the cause of 
this misery: this, however, does not prevent the 
fact of their being miserable. For the most part 
they conceal the fact as well as possible from 
themselves, by occupying their minds with society, 
sport, frivolity of all kinds, or, if intellectually dis- 
posed, with science, art, literature, business, &c. 
This however is but to fill the starving belly with 
husks. I know from experience the intellectual 



A Candid Examination of Religion 151 

distractions of scientific research, philosophical 
speculation, and artistic pleasures ; but am also 
well aware that even when all are taken together 
and well sweetened to taste, in respect of consequent 
reputation, means, social position, &c, the whole 
concoction is but as high confectionery to a starving 
man. He may cheat himself for a time— especially 
if he be a strong man — into the belief that he is 
nourishing himself by denying his natural appetite ; 
but soon finds he was made for some altogether 
different kind of food, even though of much less 
tastefulness as far as the palate is concerned. 

Some men indeed never acknowledge this 
articulately or distinctly even to themselves, yet 
always show it plainly enough to others. Take, 
e. g., ' that last infirmity of noble minds.' I suppose 
the most exalted and least 'carnal' of worldly joys 
consists in the adequate recognition by the world of 
high achievement by ourselves. Yet it is notorious 

that cj t is b y q oc i d ecr eed 

Fame shall not satisfy the highest need/ 

It has been my lot to know not a few of the 
famous men of our generation, and I have always 
observed that this is profoundly true. Like all 
other ' moral ' satisfactions, this soon palls by 
custom, and as soon as one end of distinction is 
reached, another is pined for. There is no finality 
to rest in, while disease and death are always 
standing in the background. Custom may even 
blind men to their own misery, so far as not to 
make them realize what is wanting ; yet the want 
is there. 



152 Thoughts on Religion 

I take it then as unquestionably true that this 
whole negative side of the subject proves a vacuum 
in the soul of man which nothing can fill save 
faith in God. 

Now take the positive side. Consider the happi- 
ness of religious — and chiefly of the highest religious, 
i. e. Christian — belief. It is a matter of fact that 
besides being most intense, it is most enduring, 
growing, and never staled by custom. In short, 
according to the universal testimony of those who 
have it, it differs from all other happiness not only 
in degree but in kind. Those who have it can 
usually testify to what they used to be without it. 
It has no relation to intellectual status. It is 
a thing by itself and supreme. 

So much for the individual. But positive evidence 
does not end here. Look at the effects of Christian 
belief as exercised on human society — ist, by indi- 
vidual Christians on the family, &c. ; and, 2nd, by 
the Christian Church on the world. 

All this may lead on to an argument from the 
adaptation of Christianity to human higher needs. 
All men must feel these needs more or less in pro- 
portion as their higher natures, moral and spiritual, 
are developed. Now Christianity is the only religion 
which is adapted to meet them, and, according to 
those who are alone able to testify, does so most 
abundantly. All these men, of every sect, nation- 
ality, &c, agree in their account of their subjective 
experience ; so as to this there can be no question. 
The only question is as to whether they are all 
deceived. 



A Candid Examination of Religion 153 



PEU DE CHOSE. 

' La vie est vaine : 

Un peu d'amour, 
Un peu de haine . . . 
Et puis — bon jour ! 

La vie est breve : 

Un peu d'espoir, 
Un peu de reve . . . 

Et puis — bon soir ! ' 

The above is a terse and true criticism of this life 
without hope of a future one. Is it satisfactory ? 
But Christian faith, as a matter of fact, changes it 
entirely. 

1 The night has a thousand eyes, 
And the day but one ; 
Yet the light of a whole world dies 
With the setting sun. 

The mind has a thousand eyes, 

And the heart but one ; 
Yet the light of a whole life dies 

When love is done.' 

Love is known to be all this. How great, then, 
is Christianity, as being the religion of love, and 
causing men to believe both in the cause of love's 
supremacy and the infinity of God's love to man. 



§ 5- Faith in Christianity. 



Christianity comes up for serious investigation 
in the present treatise, because this Examination of 
Religion [i. e. of the validity of the religious con- 
sciousness] has to do with the evidences of Theism 
presented by man, and not only by nature minus 
man. Now of the religious consciousness Chris- 
tianity is unquestionably the highest product. 

When I wrote the preceding treatise [the Candid 
Examination], I did not sufficiently appreciate the 
immense importance of human nature, as dis- 
tinguished from physical nature, in any enquiry 
touching Theism. But since then I have seriously 
studied anthropology (including the science of com- 
parative religions), psychology and metaphysics, 
with the result of clearly seeing that human nature 
is the most important part of nature as a whole 
whereby to investigate the theory of Theism. This I 
ought to have anticipated on merely a priori grounds, 
and no doubt should have perceived, had I not been 
too much immersed in merely physical research. 

Moreover, in those days, I took it for granted 
that Christianity was played out, and never con- 
sidered it at all as having any rational bearing 



A Candid Examination of Religion 155 

on the question of Theism. And, though this was 
doubtless inexcusable, I still think that the rational 
standing of Christianity has materially improved 
since then. For then it seemed that Christianity 
was destined to succumb as a rational system 
before the double assault of Darwin from without 
and the negative school of criticism from within. 
Not only the book of organic nature, but likewise 
its own sacred documents, seemed to be declaring 
against it. But now all this has been very 
materially changed. We have all more or less 
grown to see that Darwinism is like Copernicanism, 
&c, in this respect 2 ; while the outcome of the 
great textual battle 2 is impartially considered 
a signal victory for Christianity. Prior to the new 
[Biblical] science, there was really no rational 
basis in thoughtful minds, either for the date of 
any one of the New Testament books, or, con- 
sequently, for the historical truth of any one of 
the events narrated in them. Gospels, Acts and 
Epistles were all alike shrouded in this uncertainty. 
Hence the validity of the eighteenth-century scepti- 
cism. But now all this kind of scepticism has been 
rendered obsolete, and for ever impossible ; while 
the certainty of enough of St. Paul's writings for 
the practical purpose of displaying the belief of the 
apostles has been established, as well as the certainty 
of the publication of the Synoptics within the first 

1 [I. e. a theory which comes at first as a shock to the current 
teaching of Christianity, but is finally seen to be in no antagonism to 
its necessary principles. — Ed.] 

2 [I.e. the battle in regard to the Christian texts or documents. 
—Ed.] 



156 Thoughts on Religion 

century. An enormous gain has thus accrued to 
the objective evidences of Christianity. It is most 
important that the expert investigator should be 
exact, and, as in any other science, the lay public 
must take on authority as trustworthy only what 
both sides are agreed upon. But, as in any other 
science, experts are apt to lose sight of the impor- 
tance of the main results agreed upon, in their 
fighting over lesser points still in dispute. Now it 
is enough for us that the Epistles to the Romans, 
Galatians, and Corinthians, have been agreed upon 
as genuine, and that the same is true of the 
Synoptics so far as concerns the main doctrine of 
Christ Himself. 



The extraordinary candour of Christ's bio- 
graphers must not be forgotten \ Notice also such 
sentences as ' but some doubted,' and (in the account 
of Pentecost) ' these men are full of new wine V 
Such observations are wonderfully true to human 
nature; but no less wonderfully opposed to any 
' accretion ' theory. 

Observe, when we become honestly pure agnos- 
tics the whole scene changes by the change in our 
point of view. We may then read the records 
impartially, or on their own merits, without any 
antecedent conviction that they must be false. 
It is then an open question whether they are 
not true as history. 

1 See Gore's Bampton Lectures, pp. 74 ff. 

2 Matt, xxviii. 17; Acts ii. 13. 



A Candid Examination of Religion 157 

There is so much to be said in objective evidence 
for Christianity that were the central doctrines 
thus testified to anything short of miraculous, no 
one would doubt. But we are not competent 
judges a priori of what a revelation should be. If 
our agnosticism be pure, we have no right to pre- 
judge the case on prima facie grounds. 



One of the strongest pieces of objective evidence 
in favour of Christianity is not sufficiently enforced 
by apologists. Indeed, I am not aware that I have 
ever seen it mentioned. It is the absence from 
the biography of Christ of any doctrines which the 
subsequent growth of human knowledge — whether 
in natural science, ethics, political economy, or else- 
where — has had to discount. This negative argu- 
ment is really almost as strong as is the positive 
one from what Christ did teach. For when we 
consider what a large number of sayings are recorded 
of — or at least attributed to — Him, it becomes most 
remarkable that in literal truth there is no reason 
why any of His words should ever pass away in the 
sense of becoming obsolete. c Not even now could 
it be easy,' says John Stuart Mill, ' even for an 
unbeliever, to find a better translation of the 
rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, 
than to endeavour so to live that Christ would 
approve our life 2 .' Contrast Jesus Christ in this 
respect with other thinkers of like antiquity. 
Even Plato, who, though some 400 years B. C. in 
1 Three Essays on Theism, p. 255. 



158 Thoughts on Religion 

point of time, was greatly in advance of Him in 
respect of philosophic thought — not only because 
Athens then presented the extraordinary pheno- 
menon which it did of genius in all directions never 
since equalled, but also because he, following 
Socrates, was, so to speak, the greatest represen- 
tative of human reason in the direction of spirituality 
— even Plato, I say, is nowhere in this respect as 
compared with Christ. Read the dialogues, and see 
how enormous is the contrast with the Gospels in 
respect of errors of all kinds — reaching even to 
absurdity in respect of reason, and to sayings 
shocking to the moral sense. Yet this is con- 
fessedly the highest level of human reason on the 
lines of spirituality, when unaided by alleged reve- 
lation. 

Two things may be said in reply. First, that the 
Jews (Rabbis) of Christ's period had enunciated 
most of Christ's ethical sayings. But, even so far 
as this is true, the sayings were confessedly 
extracted or deduced from the Old Testament, and 
so ex hypothesi due to original inspiration. Again, 
it is not very far true, because, as Ecce Homo 
says, the ethical sayings of Christ, even when 
anticipated by Rabbis and the Old Testament, were 
selected by Him. 



It is a general, if not a universal, rule that those 
who reject Christianity with contempt are those 
who care not for religion of any kind. c Depart 
from us 5 has always been the sentiment of such. 



A Candid Examination of Religion 159 

On the other hand, those in whom the religious 
sentiment is intact, but who have rejected Chris- 
tianity on intellectual grounds, still almost deify 
Christ. These facts are remarkable. 

If we estimate the greatness of a man by the 
influence which he has exerted on mankind, there 
can be no question, even from the secular point 
of view, that Christ is much the greatest man who 
has ever lived. 

It is on all sides worth considering (blatant 
ignorance or base vulgarity alone excepted) that 
the revolution effected by Christianity in human 
life is immeasurable and unparalleled by any other 
movement in history ; though most nearly ap- 
proached by that of the Jewish religion, of w 7 hich, 
however, it is a development, so that it may be 
regarded as of a piece with it* If thus regarded, this 
whole system of religion is so immeasurably in 
advance of all others, that it may fairly be said, if 
it had not been for the Jews, the human race 
would not have had any religion worth our serious 
attention as such. The whole of that side of human 
nature would never have been developed in civilized 
life. And although there are numberless in- 
dividuals who are not conscious of its development 
in themselves, yet even these have been influenced 
to an enormous extent by the atmosphere of 
religion around them. 

But not only is Christianity thus so immeasurably 
in advance of all other religions. It is no less so 
of every other system of thought that has ever been 
promulgated in regard to all that is moral and 



160 Thoughts on Religion 

spiritual. Whether it be true or false, it is certain 
that neither philosophy, science, nor poetry has ever 
produced results in thought, conduct, or beauty in 
any degree to be compared with it. This I think 
will be on all hands allowed as regards conduct. 
As regards thought and beauty it may be disputed. 
But, consider, what has all the science or all the 
philosophy of the world done for the thought of 
mankind to be compared with the one doctrine, 
6 God is love ' ? Whether or not true, conceive what 
belief in it has been to thousands of millions of 
our race-— i.e. its influence on human thought, and 
thence on human conduct. Thus to admit its 
incomparable influence in conduct is indirectly to 
admit it as regards thought. Again, as regards 
beauty, the man who fails to see its incomparable 
excellence in this respect merely shows his own 
deficiency in the appreciation of all that is noblest 
in man. True or not true, the entire Story of the 
Cross, from its commencement in prophetic aspira- 
tion to its culmination in the Gospel, is by far the 
most magnificent [presentation] in literature. And 
surely the fact of its having all been lived does not 
detract from its poetic value. Nor does the fact 
of its being capable of appropriation by the indi- 
vidual Christian of to-day as still a vital religion 
detract from its sublimity. Only to a man wholly 
destitute of spiritual perception can it be that 
Christianity should fail to appear the greatest ex- 
hibition of the beautiful, the sublime, and of all 
else that appeals to our spiritual nature, which has 
ever been known upon our earth. 



A Candid Examination of Religion 161 

Yet this side of its adaptation is turned only 
towards men of highest culture. The most re- 
markable thing about Christianity is its adaptation 
to all sorts and conditions of men. Are you highly 
intellectual ? There is in its problems, historical 
and philosophical, such worlds of material as you 
may spend your life upon with the same intermin- 
able interest as is open to the students of natural 
science. Or are you but a peasant in your parish 
church, with knowledge of little else than your 
Bible ? Still are you . . . x 



Regeneration. 

How remarkable is the doctrine of Regeneration 
per se, as it is stated in the New Testament 2 , and 
how completely it fits in with the non-demonstrative 
character of Revelation to reason alone, with the 
hypothesis of moral probation, &c. Now this 
doctrine is one of the distinctive notes of Chris- 
tianity. That is, Christ foretold repeatedly and 
distinctly — as did also His apostles after Him — that 
while those who received the Holy Ghost, who 
came to the Father through faith in the Son, who 
were born again of the Spirit, (and many other 
synonymous phrases,) w r ould be absolutely certain 
of Christian truth as it were by direct vision or 
intuition, the carnally minded on the other hand 

1 [Note unfinished.— Ed.] 

a [George Romanes began to make a collection of N. T. texts 
bearing on the subject, — Ed.] 

L 



162 Thoughts on Religion 

would not be affected by any amount of direct 
evidence, even though one rose from the dead — as 
indeed Christ shortly afterwards did, with fulfil- 
ment of this prediction. Thus scepticism may be 
taken by Christians as corroborating Christianity. 

By all means let us retain our independence of 
judgement ; but this is pre-eminently a matter in 
which pure agnostics must abstain from arrogance 
and consider the facts impartially as unquestionable 
phenomena of experience. 

Shortly after the death of Christ, this phenomenon 
which had been foretold by Him occurred, and 
appears to have done so for the first time. It has 
certainly continued to manifest itself ever since, 
and has been attributed by professed historians 
to that particular moment in time called Pentecost, 
producing much popular excitement and a large 
number of Christian believers. 

But, whether or not we accept this account, it is 
unquestionable that the apostles were filled with 
faith in the person and office of their Master, which 
is enough to justify His doctrine of regeneration. 



Conversions. 

St. Augustine after thirty years of age, and other 
Fathers, bear testimony to a sudden, enduring and 
extraordinary change in themselves, called con- 
version^. 

Now this experience has been repeated and 

1 See Pascal, Pensies, p. 245. 






A Candid Examination of Religion 163 

testified to by countless millions of civilized men 
and women in all nations and all degrees of culture. 
It signifies not whether the conversion be sudden 
or gradual, though, as a psychological phenomenon, 
it is more remarkable when sudden and there is 
no symptom of mental aberration otherwise. But 
even as a gradual growth in mature age, its evi- 
dential value is not less. (Cf. Bunyan, &c.) 

In all cases it is not a mere change of belief or 
opinion ; this is by no means the point ; the point is 
that it is a modification of character, more or less 
profound. 

Seeing what a complex thing is character, this 
change therefore cannot be simple. That it may 
all be due to so-called natural causes is no evidence 
against its so-called supernatural source, unless we 
beg the whole question of the Divine in Nature. 
To pure agnostics the evidence from conversions 
and regeneration lies in the bulk of these psycho- 
logical phenomena, shortly after the death of Christ, 
with their continuance ever since, their general 
similarity all over the world, &c, &c. 



Christianity and Pain. 

Christianity, from its foundation in Judaism, has 
throughout been a religion of sacrifice and sorrow. 
It has been a religion of blood and tears, and yet 
of profoundest happiness to its votaries. The ap- 
parent paradox is due to its depth, and to the union 
of these seemingly diverse roots in Love. It has 

L % 



164 Thoughts on Religion 

been throughout and growingly a religion — or 
rather let us say the religion — of Love, with these 
apparently opposite qualities. Probably it is only 
those whose characters have been deepened by 
experiences gained in this religion itself who are so 
much as capable of intelligently resolving this 
paradox. 

Fakirs hang on hooks, Pagans cut themselves 
and even their children, sacrifice captives, &c, for 
the sake of propitiating diabolical deities. The 
Jewish and Christian idea of sacrifice is doubtless 
a survival of this idea of God by way of natural 
causation, yet this is no evidence against the com- 
pleted idea of the Godhead being [such as the 
Christian belief represents it], for supposing the 
completed idea to be true, the earlier ideals would 
have been due to the earlier inspirations, in accor- 
dance with the developmental method of Revelation 
hereafter to be discussed \ 

But Christianity, with its roots in Judaism, is, as 
I have said, par excellence the religion of sorrow, 
because it reaches to truer and deeper levels of 
our spiritual nature, and therefore has capabilities 
both of sorrow and joy which are presumably 
non-existent except in civilized man. I mean the 
sorrows and the joys of a fully evolved spiritual 
life — such as were attained wonderfully early, his- 
torically speaking, in the case of the Jews, and are 
now universally diffused throughout Christendom. 
In short, the sorrows and the joys in question are 

1 [The notes on this subject were often too fragmentary for pub- 
lication. — Ed.] 



A Candid Examination of Religion 165 

those which arise from the fully developed con- 
sciousness of sin against a God of Love, as 
distinguished from propitiation of malignant spirits. 
These joys and sorrows are wholly spiritual, not 
merely physical, and culminate in the cry, ' Thou 
desirest no sacrifice. . . . The sacrifice of God is 
a troubled spirit V 



I agree with Pascal 2 that there is virtually 
nothing to be gained by being a theist as dis- 
tinguished from a Christian. Unitarianism is only 
an affair of the reason — a merely abstract theory 
of the mind, having nothing to do with the heart, 
or the real needs of mankind. It is only when it 
takes the New Testament, tears out a few of its 
leaves relating to the divinity of Christ, and appro- 
priates all the rest, that its system becomes in any 
degree possible as a basis for personal religion. 

If there is a Deity it seems to be in some indefi- 
nite degree more probable that He should impart 
a Revelation than that He should not. 



Women, as a class, are in all countries much 
more disposed to Christianity than men. I think 
the scientific explanation of this is to be found 
in the causes assigned in my essay on Mental 
differences between Men and Women 3 . But, if Chris- 
tianity be supposed true, there would, of course, be 

1 Ps. li. 2 Pensees, pp. 91-93. 

3 See Nineteenth Century ', May 1887. 



166 Thoughts on Religion 

a more ultimate explanation of a religious kind — as 
in all other cases where causation is concerned. And, 
in that case I have no doubt that the largest part 
of the explanation would consist in the passions of 
women being less ardent than those of men, and 
also much more kept under restraint by social condi- 
tions of life. This applies not only to purity, but like- 
wise to most of the other psychological differentiae 
betw r een the sexes, such as ambition, selfishness, 
pride of power, and so forth. In short, the whole 
ideal of Christian ethics is of a feminine as dis- 
tinguished from a masculine type 1 . Now nothing 
is so inimical to Christian belief as un-Christian 
conduct. This is especially the case as regards 
impurity ; for whether the fact be explained on 
religious or non-religious grounds, it has more to 
do with unbelief than has the speculative reason. 
Consequently, woman is, for all these reasons, 
the 'fitter ' type for receiving and retaining Christian 
belief. 



Modern agnosticism is performing this great 
service to Christian faith ; it is silencing all rational 
scepticism of the a priori kind. And this it is bound 
to do more and more the purer it becomes. In 
every generation it must henceforth become more 

1 [The essay mentioned above should be read in explanation of 
this expression. George Romanes' meaning would be more accurately 
expressed, I think, had he said : ' The ideal of Christian character 
holds in prominence the elements which we regard as characteris- 
tically feminine, e.g. development of affections, readiness of trust, love 
of service, readiness to suffer, 8cc,' — Ed.] 



A Candid Examination of Religion 167 

and more recognized by logical thinking, that all 
antecedent objections to Christianity founded on 
reason alone are ipso facto nugatory. Now, all 
the strongest objections to Christianity have ever 
been those of the antecedent kind ; hence the 
effect of modern thinking is that of more and more 
diminishing the purely speculative difficulties, such 
as that of the Incarnation, &c. In other words 
the force of Butler's argument about our being 
incompetent judges 1 is being more and more 
increased. 

And the logical development of this lies in the 
view already stated about natural causation. For, 
just as pure agnosticism must allow that reason 
is incompetent to adjudicate a priori for or against 
Christian miracles, including the Incarnation, so 
it must further allow that, if they ever took place, 
reason can have nothing to say against their being 
all of one piece with causation in general. Hence, 
so far as reason is concerned, pure agnosticism 
must allow that it is only the event which can 
ultimately prove whether Christianity is true or 
false. ' If it be of God we cannot overthrow it, 
lest haply we be found even to fight against God/ 
But the individual cannot wait for this empirical\ 
determination. What then is he to do? The un- 
biassed answer of pure agnosticism ought reason- 
ably to be, in the words of John Hunter, ' Do 
not think ; try/ That is, in this case, try the 
only experiment available — the experiment of 
faith. Do the doctrine, and if Christianity be 

1 See Analogy part i. ch. 7 ; part ii. ch. 3, 4, &c. 



168 Thoughts on Religion 

true, the verification will come, not indeed 
mediately through any course of speculative 
reason, but immediately by spiritual intuition. 
Only if a man has faith enough to make this 
venture honestly, will he be in a just position for 
deciding the issue. Thus viewed it would seem 
that the experiment of faith is not a ' fool's ex- 
periment ' ; but, on the contrary, so that there is 
enough prima facie evidence to arrest serious 
attention, such an experimental trial would seem 
\ to be the rational duty of a pure agnostic. 

It is a fact that Christian belief is much more 
due to doing than to thinking, as prognosticated 
by the New Testament. ' If any man will do His 
will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be 
of God' (St. John vii. 17). And surely, even on 
grounds of reason itself, it should be allowed that, 
supposing Christianity to be ' of God,' it ought to 
appeal to the spiritual rather than to the rational 
side of our nature. 



Even within the region of pure reason (or the 
i prima facie case ') modern science, as directed on 
the New Testament criticism, has surely done 
more for Christianity than against it. For, after 
half a century of battle over the text by the best 
scholars, the dates of the Gospels have been fixed 
within the first century, and at least four of 
St. Paul's epistles have had their authenticity 
proved beyond doubt. Now this is enough to destroy 
all eighteenth-century criticism as to the doubtful- 



A Candid Examination of Religion 169 

ness of the historical existence of Christ and His 
apostles, ' inventions of priests/ &c, which was the 
most formidable kind of criticism of all. There is 
no longer any question as to historical facts, save 
the miraculous, which, however, are ruled out by 
negative criticism on merely a priori grounds. 
This remaining — and, ex hypothesis necessary — 
doubt is of very different importance from the 
other. 

Again, the Pauline epistles of proved authen- 
ticity are enough for all that is wanted to show 
the belief of Christ's contemporaries. 

These are facts of the first order of importance 
to have proved. Old Testament criticism is as yet 
too immature to consider. 



Plan in Revelation. 

The views which I entertained on this subject 
when an undergraduate [i. e. the ordinary orthodox 
views] were abandoned in presence of the theory 
of Evolution — i. e. the theory of natural causation 
as probably furnishing a scientific explanation [of 
the religious phenomena of Judaism] or, which is 
the same thing, an explanation in terms of ascer- 
tainable causes up to some certain point ; which 
however in this particular case cannot be deter- 
mined within wide limits, so that the history of 
Israel will always embody an element of ' mystery ' 
much more than any other history. 

It was not until twenty-five years later that 



170 Thoughts on Religion 

I saw clearly the full implications of my present 
views on natural causation. As applied to this 
particular case these views show that to a theist, 
at all events (i.e. to any one who on independent 
grounds has accepted the theory of Theism), it 
ought not to make much difference to the evidential 
value of the Divine Plan of Revelation as exhibited 
in the Old and New Testaments, even if it be 
granted that the whole has been due to so-called 
natural causes only. I say, ' not much difference/ 
for that it ought to make some difference I do not 
deny. Take a precisely analogous case. The 
theory of evolution by natural causes is often said 
to make no logical difference in the evidence of 
plan or design manifested in organic nature — it 
being only a question of modus operandi whether 
all pieces of organic machinery were produced 
suddenly or by degrees ; the evidence of design is 
equally there in either case. Now I have shown 
elsewhere that this is wrong 1 . It may not make 
much difference to a man who is already a theist, 
for then it is but a question of modus, but it makes 
a great difference to the evidence of Theism. 

So it is in evidence of plan in proof of a reve- 
lation. If there had been no alleged revelation 
up to the present time, and if Christ were now 
to appear suddenly in His first advent in all the 
power and glory which Christians expect for His 
second, the proof of His revelation would be 
demonstrative. So that, as a mere matter of 
evidence, a sudden revelation might be much more 

1 See Conclusion of Darwin and After Darwin, part I. 



A Candid Examination of Religion 171 

convincing than a gradual one. But it would 
be quite out of analogy with causation in nature 1 . 
Besides, even a gradual revelation might be given 
easily, which would be of demonstrative value — 
as by making prophecies of historical events, 
scientific discoveries, &c, so clear as to be un- 
mistakeable. But, as before shown, a demonstrative 
revelation has not been made, and there may well 
be good reasons why it should not. Now, if there 
are such reasons (e.g. our state of probation), we 
can well see that the gradual unfolding of a plan 
of revelation, from earliest dawn of history to the 
end of the world (' I speak as a fool ') is much 
preferable to a sudden manifestation sufficiently late 
in the world's history to be historically attested 
for all subsequent time. For 

1st. Gradual evolution is in analogy with God's 
other work. 

2nd. It does not leave Him without witness at 
any time during the historical period. 

3rd. It gives ample scope for persevering research 
at all times — i. e. a moral test, and not merely 
an intellectual assent to some one (ex hypothesi) 
unequivocally attested event in history. 

The appearance of plan in revelation is, in fact, 
certainly remarkable enough to arrest serious at- 
tention. 

1 I should somewhere show how much better a treatise Butler 
might have written had he known about evolution as the general law 
of nature. 



172 Thoughts on Religion 

If revelation has been of a progressive character, 
then it follows that it must have been so, not only 
historically, but likewise intellectually, morally, 
and spiritually. For thus only could it be always 
adapted to the advancing conditions of the human 
race. This reflection destroys all those numerous 
objections against Scripture on account of the 
absurdity or immorality of its statements or pre- 
cepts, unless it can be shown that the modifications 
suggested by criticism as requisite to bring the 
statements or precepts into harmony with modern 
advancement would have been as well adapted 
to the requirements of the world at the date in 
question, as were the actual statements or precepts 
before us. 



Supposing Christianity true, it is certain that the 
revelation which it conveys has been predetermined 
at least since the dawn of the historical period. 
This is certain because the objective evidences of 
Christianity as a revelation have their origin in 
that dawn. And these objective evidences are 
throughout [evidence] of a scheme, in which the 
end can be seen from the beginning. And the 
very methods whereby this scheme is itself revealed 
are such (still supposing that it is a scheme) as 
present remarkable evidences of design. These 
methods are, broadly speaking, miracles, prophecy 
and the results of the teaching, &c, upon mankind. 
Now one may show that no better methods could 
conceivably have been designed for the purpose of 



A Candid Examination of Religion 173 

latter-day evidence, combined with moral and 
religious teaching throughout. The mere fact of 
it being so largely incorporated with secular history 
renders the Christian religion unique : so to speak, 
the world, throughout its entire historical period, 
has been constituted the canvas on which this 
divine revelation has been painted — and painted so 
gradually that not until the process had been going 
on for a couple of thousand years was it possible 
to perceive the subject thereof. 



Christian Dogmas. 

Whether or not Christ was Himself divine would 
make no difference so far as the consideration of 
Christianity as the highest phase of evolution is 
concerned, or from the purely secular [scientific] 
point of view. From the religious point of view, or 
that touching the relation of God to man, it would 
of course make a great difference; but the differ- 
ence belongs to the same region of thought as that 
which applies to all the previous moments of 
evolution. Thus the passage from the non-moral 
to the moral appears, from the secular or scientific 
point of view, to be due, as far as we can see, to 
mechanical causes in natural selection or what not. 
But, just as in the case of the passage from the 
non-mental to the mental, &c, this passage may 
have been ultimately due to divine volition, and 
must have bee7i so due on the theory of Theism. 
Therefore, I say, it makes no difference from 



174 Thoughts on Religion 

a secular or scientific point of view whether or not 
Christ was Himself divine ; since, in either case, the 
movement which He inaugurated was the proximate 
or phenomenal cause of the observable results. 

Thus, even the question of the divinity of Christ 
ultimately resolves itself into the question of all 
questions — viz. is or is not mechanical causation 
'the outward and visible form of an inward and 
spiritual grace ' ? Is it phenomenal or ontological ; 
ultimate or derivative ? 

Similarly as regards the redemption. Whether 
or not Christ was really divine, in as far as a belief 
in His divinity has been a necessary cause of the 
moral and religious evolution which has resulted 
from His life on earth, it has equally and so far 
' saved His people from their sins'; that is, of course, 
it has saved them from their own sense of sin as 
an abiding curse. Whether or not He has effected 
any corresponding change of an objective character 
in the ontological sphere, again depends on the 
6 question of questions ' just stated. 



Reasonableness of the Doctrines of the Incarnation 
and the Trinity, 

Pure agnostics and those who search for God 
in Christianity should have nothing to do with 
metaphysical theology. That is a department of 
enquiry which, ex hypothesi, is transcendental, and 
is only to be considered after Christianity has been 
accepted. The doctrines of the Incarnation and the 



A Candid Examination of Religion 175 

Trinity seemed to me most absurd in my agnostic 
days. But now, as a pure agnostic, I see in them 
no rational difficulty at all. As to the Trinity, the 
plurality of persons is necessarily implied in the 
companion doctrine of the Incarnation. So that at 
best there is here but one difficulty, since, duality 
being postulated in the doctrine of the Incarna- 
tion, there is no further difficulty for pure agnos- 
ticism in the doctrine of plurality. Now at one 
time it seemed to me impossible that any proposi- 
tion, verbally intelligible as such, could be more 
violently absurd than that of the doctrine [of the 
Incarnation]. Now I see that this standpoint is 
wholly irrational, due only to the blindness of reason 
itself promoted by [purely] scientific habits of 
thought. ' But it is opposed to common sense.' 
No doubt, utterly so ; but so it ought to be if true. 
Common sense is merely a [rough] register of 
common experience ; but the Incarnation, if it ever 
took place, whatever else it may have been, at all 
events cannot have been a common event. 'But 
it is derogatory to God to become man.' How do 
you know? Besides, Christ was not an ordinary 
man. Both negative criticism and the historical 
effects of His life prove this ; while, if we for 
a moment adopt the Christian point of view for 
the sake of argument, the whole raison d*etre of 
mankind is bound up in Him. Lastly, there are 
considerations per contra, rendering an incarnation 
antecedently probable 1 . On antecedent grounds 
there must be mysteries unintelligible to reason as 

1 See Gore's Bampton Lectures, lect. ii. 



176 Thoughts on Religion 

to the nature of God, &c, supposing a revelation 
to be made at all. Therefore their occurrence in 
Christianity is no proper objection to Christianity. 
Why, again, stumble a priori over the doctrine of the 
Trinity — especially as man himself is a triune being, 
of body, mind (i.e. reason), and spirit (i.e. moral, 
aesthetic, religious faculties)? The unquestionable 
union of these no less unquestionably distinct orders 
of being in man is known immediately as a fact of 
experience, but is as unintelligible by any process 
of logic or reason as is the alleged triunity of God. 



Adam^ the Fall y the Origin of Evil. 

These, all taken together as Christian dogmas, 
are undoubtedly hard hit by the scientific proof of 
evolution (but are the only dogmas which can fairly 
be said to be so), and, as constituting the logical 
basis of the whole plan, they certainly do appear at 
first sight necessarily to involve in their destruction 
that of the entire superstructure. But the question 
is whether, after all, they have been destroyed for 
a pure agnostic. In other words, whether my prin- 
ciples are not as applicable in turning the flank of 
infidelity here as everywhere else. 

First, as regards Adam and Eve, observe, to 
begin with, that long before Darwin the story of 
man in Paradise was recognized by thoughtful 
theologians as allegorical. Indeed, read with un- 
prejudiced eyes, the first chapters of Genesis ought 
always to have been seen to be a poem as dis- 



A Candid Examination of Religion 177 

tinguished from a history : nor could it ever have 
been mistaken for a history, but for preconceived 
ideas on the matter of inspiration. But to pure 
agnostics there should be no such preconceived 
ideas ; so that nowadays no presumption should 
be raised against it as inspired, merely because it 
has been proved not to be a history — and this even 
though we cannot see of what it is allegorical. 
For, supposing it inspired, it has certainly done 
good service in the past and can do so likewise in 
the present, by giving an allegorical, though not 
a literal, starting-point for the Divine Plan of 
Redemption. 



The evidence of Natural and Revealed 
Religion compared. 

It is often said that evolution of organic forms 
gives as good evidence of design as would their 
special creation, inasmuch as all the facts of adap- 
tation, in which the evidence consists, are there 
in either case. But here it is overlooked that the 
very question at issue is thus begged. The question 
is, Are these facts of adaptation per se sufficient 
evidence of design as their cause? But if it be 
allowed, as it must be, that under hypothesis of 
evolution by natural causes the facts of adaptation 
belong to the same category as all the other facts 
of nature, no more special argument for design 
can be founded on these facts than on any others 
in nature. So that the facts of adaptation, like 

M 



178 Thoughts on Religion 

all other facts, are only available as arguments for 
design when it is assumed that all natural causation 
is of a mental character : which assumption merely 
begs the question of design anywhere. Or, in 
other words, on the supposition of their having 
been due to natural causes, the facts of adaptation 
are only then available as per se good evidence of 
design, when it has already been assumed that, qua 
due to natural causes, they are due to design. 

Natural religion resembles Revealed religion 
in this. Supposing both divine, both have been 
arranged so that, as far as reason can lead us, 
there is only enough evidence of design to arouse 
serious attention to the question of it. In other 
words, as regards both, the attitude of pure reason 
ought to be that of pure agnosticism. (Observe 
that the inadequacy of teleology, or design in 
nature, to prove Theism has been expressly 
recognized by all the more intellectual Christians 
of all ages, although such recognition has become 
more general since Darwin. On this point I may 
refer to Pascal especially \ and many other authors.) 
This is another striking analogy between Nature 
and Revelation, supposing both to have emanated 
from the same author— i.e. quite as much so as 
identity of developmental method in both. 

Supposing the hypothesis of design in both to be 
true, it follows that in both this hypothesis can be 
alike verified only by the organ of immediate intui- 
tion — i. e. that other mode of human apprehension 
which is supplementary to the rational. Here 
1 PensieS) pp. 205 ff. 



A Candid Examination of Religion 179 

again we note the analogy. And if a man has this 
supplementary mode of apprehending the highest 
truth (by hypothesis such), it will be his duty to 
exercise his spiritual eyesight in searching for God 
in nature as in revelation, when (still on our present 
hypothesis that € God is, and is the rewarder of 
them who seek Him diligently') he will find that 
his subjective evidence of God in Nature and in 
Revelation will mutually corroborate one another — 
so yielding additional evidence to his reason. 

The teleology of Revelation supplements that 
of Nature, and so, to the spiritually minded man, 
they logically and mutually corroborate one 
another. 

Paley's writings form an excellent illustration of 
the identity of the teleological argument from 
Nature and from Revelation ; though a very imper- 
fect illustration of the latter taken by itself, inasmuch 
as he treats only of the New Testament, and even 
of that very partially — ignoring all that went 
before Christ, and much of what happened after 
the apostles. Yet Paley himself does not seem to 
have observed the similarity of the argument, as 
developed in his Natural Theology and Evidejtces 
of Christianity respectively. But no one has de- 
veloped the argument better in both cases. His 
great defect was in not perceiving that this teleo- 
logical argument, per se, is not in either case enough 
to convince, but only to arouse serious attention. 
Paley everywhere represents that such an appeal 
to reason alone ought to be sufficient. He fails 
to see that if it were, there could be no room for 

M 2 



180 Thoughts on Religion 

faith. In other words, he fails to recognize the 
spiritual organ in man, and its complementary 
object, grace in God. So far he fails to be a 
Christian. And, whether Theism and Christianity- 
be true or false, it is certain that the teleological 
argument alone ought to result, not in conviction, 
but in agnosticism. 



The antecedent improbability against a miracle 
being wrought by a man without a moral object is 
apt to be confused with that of its being done by 
God with an adequate moral object. The former 
is immeasurably great ; the latter is only equal to 
that of the theory of Theism — i. e. nil. 



Christian Demonology 1 . 

It will be said, ' However you may seek to explain 
away a priori objections to miracles on a priori 
grounds, there remains the fact that Christ accepted 
the current superstition in regard to diabolic pos- 
session. Now the devils damn the doctrine. For 
you must choose the horn of your dilemma, either 

1 [Romanes' line of argument in this note seems to me impossible 
to maintain. The emphasis which Jesus Christ lays on diabolic 
agency is so great that, if it is not a reality, He must be regarded 
either as seriously misled about realities which concern the spiritual 
life, or else as seriously misleading others. And in neither case could 
He be even the perfect Prophet. I think I am justified in explaining 
my disagreement with Romanes' argument at this point particularly. 
—Ed.] 



A Candid Examination of Religion 181 

the current theory was true or it was not. If you 
say true, you must allow that the same theory is 
true for all similar stages of culture, [but not for 
the later stages.] and therefore that the most suc- 
cessful exorcist is Science, albeit Science works 
not by faith in the theory, but by rejection of it. 
Observe, the diseases are so well described by the 
record, that there is no possibility of mistaking 
them. Hence you must suppose that they were 
due to devils in A. D. 30, and to nervous disorders 
in A.D. 1894. On the other hand, if you choose the 
other horn, you must accept either the hypothesis 
of the ignorance or that of the mendacity of Christ.' 
The answ r er is, that either hypothesis may be 
accepted by Christianity. For the sake of argument 
we may exclude the question whether the acceptance 
of the devil theory by Christ was really historical, or 
merely attributed to Him by His biographers after 
His death. If Christ knew that the facts were not 
due to devils, He may also have known it was best 
to fall in with current theory, rather than to puzzle 
the people with a lecture on pathology. If He did 
not know, why should He, if He had previously 
8 emptied Himself' of omniscience ? In either case, 
if He had denied the current theory, He would have 
been giving evidence of scientific knowledge or of 
scientific intuition beyond the culture of His time, 
and this, as in countless other cases, was not in 
accordance with His method, which, whether we 
suppose it divine or human, has nowhere proved 
His divine mission by foreknowledge of natural 
science. 



1 82 Thoughts on Religion 

The particular question of Christ and demon- 
ology is but part of a much larger one. 



Darwin's Difficulty f \ 

The answer to Darwin's objection about so small 
a proportion of mankind having ever heard of 
Christ, is manifold : — 

i. Supposing Christianity true, it is the highest 
and final revelation ; i. e. the scheme of revelation 
has been developmental. Therefore, it follows 
from the very method that the larger proportion of 
mankind should never hear of Christ, i. e. all who 
live before His advent. 

2. But these were not left c without witness.' 
They all had their religion and their moral sense, 
each at its appropriate stage of development. 
Therefore ' the times of ignorance God winked at ' 
(Acts xvii. 30). 

3. Moreover these men were not devoid of benefit 
from Christ, because it is represented that He died 
for all men — i. e. but for Him [i. e. apart from the 
knowledge of what was to come] God would not 
have ' winked at the times of ignorance.' The effi- 
cacy of atonement is represented as transcendental, 
and not dependent on the accident of hearing about 
the Atoner. 

1 [There is nothing in Darwin's writings which seems to me to 
justify Romanes in attributing this difficulty to him specially. But 
he knew Darwin so intimately and reverenced him so profoundly that 
he is not likely to have been in error on the subject. — Ed.] 



A Candid Examination of Religion 183 

4. It is remarkable that of all men Darwin should 
have been worsted by this fallacious argument. 
For it has received its death-blow from the theory 
of evolution : i. e. if it be true that evolution has 
been the method of natural causation, and if it be 
true that the method of natural causation is due to 
a Divinity, then it follows that the lateness of 
Christ's appearance on earth must have been 
designed. For it is certain that He could not 
have appeared at any earlier date without having 
violated the method of evolution. Therefore, on 
the theory of Theism, He ought to have appeared 
when He did — i.e. at the earliest possible moment 
in history. 

So as to the suitability of the moment of Christ's 
appearance in other respects. Even secular his- 
torians are agreed as to the suitability of the 
combinations, and deduce the success of His system 
of morals and religion from this fact. So with 
students of comparative religions. 



184 Thoughts on Religion. 



Concluding Note by the Editor:— 

The intellectual attitude towards Christianity 
expressed in these notes may be described as — 
(1) * pure agnosticism' in the region of the scientific 
' reason,' coupled with (2) a vivid recognition of the 
spiritual necessity of faith and of the legitimacy 
and value of its intuitions ; (3) a perception of the 
positive strength of the historical and spiritual 
evidences of Christianity. 

George Romanes came to recognize, as in these 
written notes so also in conversation, that it was 
' reasonable to be a Christian believer ' before the 
activity or habit of faith had been recovered. His 
life was cut short very soon after this point was 
reached ; but it will surprise no one to learn that 
the writer of these ' Thoughts ' returned before his 
death to that full, deliberate communion with 
the Church of Jesus Christ which he had for so 
many years been conscientiously compelled to 
forego. In his case the ' pure in heart ' was after 
a long period of darkness allowed, in a measure 
before his death, to ' see God.' 

Fecisti nos ad te, Domine ; et inqaietum est cor 

nostrum donee requiescat in te. 

C. G. 



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